Not Another Bloody Conspiracy!
by Weiila
Summary: A storyformat parody of the most widely used clichés of FF8 fanfiction, such as new evil sorceresses, or in this case bishounen sorcerer, Galbadia planning bad stuff, amnesiac characters and Seifer making his grand return. Out of many others...
1. Bishounen sorcerers and Garden festivals

Author's note: 

As much as I enjoy FF8 fanfiction, there are thousands of 'em out there and you know it. So, this is a parody fic of the most common clichés. Hope you enjoy! This is written with the support of all the writers of FF8 fanfiction all over the net, with especial support from Ashbear, LunarCry, KaiserVonAlmasy, Refugee, Pierson and Joker Loire of the Turks for their suggestions on clichés. 

Disclaimer: Square(Enix) owns FF8. I own the evil sorcerer and his cohorts. More of that stuff later. Muhahaha…

Also, I wish to strongly point out that this is story is not meant to mock anyone in particular. All the gags, including the Mary Sues, are completely random and I am not out to anger any particular individual. 

One character from respectively Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI and IX will be mentioned and show up briefly, but I dare you to find any spoilers for those games as their appearance also parodies random fanfics. 

And now, without further ado… 

Not Another Bloody Conspiracy!

by Weiila and Co.

Squall sat by his desk, silently reading reports. The sun insisted on shining down through the glass windows behind him even if he had made a few heroic attempts to put the blinds to good use. But their fabled powers wasn't all what it was cracked up to be. Maybe because they were made in airy, white cloth that reminded of the pure, fluffy clouds outside. 

    The windows could neither block the sun, nor the irritating sound of the seagulls that enjoyed the view of and from the giant building.

 'Listen to them, laughing at you, hero,' the young man thought in frustration as another agitating, screeching croak whooshed by outside.  

    He glared at the report. 

    Another SeeD exam involving a giant monster coming out of nowhere and smashing everything. This time a behemoth in Trabia. 

    It was exceptionally ironic since it had been _scientifically proven_ that Behemoths hated cold, even if it wasn't their elemental weakness it was absent on the list of things they liked.

    Sighing slightly the knight/commander stood up and went over to the file vault covering most of the right wall. 

    Out of 30 boxes sorted – rather – alphabetically, 25 were marked "Galbadia". Squall pulled out a container labeled "Terrorism". For the record, it was about to explode already as it was filled to the limit, and it was the ninth of its kind in the collection. 

    The commander jammed down the latest report and tackled the box shut with all his force.

    Scowling at the bulging drawers for a moment, Squall turned his heel and marched back to his desk. 

    However, he hadn't even time to touch the chair before Irvine and Zell barged in before knocking, nearly getting stuck in the doorframe.

 "Squall, there's an emergency!" the martial artist shouted one second before he trampled on the sharpshooter's long jacket, rendering both of them in a heap on the floor. 

    Squall calmly sat down and silently glanced at the two between a raised eyebrow and another report, waiting for them to bring themselves in order. Irvine got up first, slamming down his palms on the desk so that the computer almost fell off had the commander not calmly reached out to grab its frame.

 "Rinoa was kidnapped!" the cowboy bellowed, his jacket dramatically flowing behind him from the power of the slams.

 "Yeah!" Zell screeched as he sprung onto his feet, waving wildly with his arms, "by purple-green-blue carnivore cannibalistic aliens from outer space! They trashed the training center, led by their alien bishie sorcerer and nabbed Rinoa from her target practice! The T-rexaur feels neglected now!"

    Squall sighed and dropped the report about fanatic fruitarians bent on killing all meat eating Estharians in Winhill. 

 "Then you two and Quistis better go and infiltrate the Galbadian government as usual," the commander commanded. 

    The mouths of the two SeeDs opened and closed in sync a couple of times. 

 "But… they are purple-green-blue carnivore cannibalistic aliens from _outer space_," Irvine finally said.

    Squall scowled at the two for a moment, then folded his arms.

 "Rinoa got kidnapped," he said in a slow, over-explanatory tone, "you know that Galbadia _always_ is involved then. If not their government then some psychotic doctor or something."

 "Oh. That's true."

    Zell and Irvine sagely nodded before the ultimate truth.

 "Should we call the Forest Owls and Esthar for backup now or later?" Zell wondered.

 "Shouldn't be necessary," Squall replied, "we'll get a call any…"

    The phone jumped to life before he could finish the sentence, its shrill tone nearly shredding the men's sanity to pieces. Squall cleared his throat, picked up the phone, turned it towards his face and roared:

 "You bastard! How _dare_ you call me after all you have done?! I swear, when I get my hands on you…!!"

    He cleared his throat again and placed the phone more properly against the side of his head.

 "There, I'm done. What can you do for us today, Seifer?"

    Irvine absentmindedly grabbed Zell's collar as the martial artist went into blind rage and almost smashed Squall's desk upon hearing the name. The commander turned his back at the frenzy and kept talking. 

 "Already infiltrated, have you? And I was going to send… uh-huh. Good. Keep up the good work and report back to me when you've found her."

 "Sure thing, pal," Seifer smirked on the other end of the line, "but before I go… I've lost count, who's turn is it?"

 "You mean Quistis or Fuijin?" Squall asked without blinking.

 "Yeah," Seifer smirked.

 "Let's see…"

    The commander pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment.

 "I think it was Fujin last time," he finally concluded, "it's Quistis' turn. I was sending her off with Irvine and Zell, you'll meet up in some unexpected place during a crucial moment as usual."

 "Oh, fine. Renewed charmyboy it is," Seifer smirked and nodded there he stood in the rusty phone booth in Deling city.

    He sighed a little through the smirk.

 "It's fine with me, but Quistis always demands more flirting. Fujin is less complicated."

 "I see," Squall said in a neutral voice, "just go back to looking for Rinoa now."

 "Of course. Expect a call soon."

 "Good luck, you cocky scumbag."

 "The same to you, puberty boy. Tell CHICKEN WUSS I SAID HI!!" 

    Seifer screamed the last part loud enough for half the Garden to hear it through the phone, but by then Squall had already turned the small speaker towards Zell in order to save himself from going deaf. 

 "ROAGH!" the martial artist replied, froth foaming at the corners of his mouth. 

 "Hey, since I'm getting it together with Quistis in this story, I'm sure you could win Fujin's love with that manly roar," Seifer smirked.

    There was a strange, whomping sound in the background of the blond knight's smirk. Also, Raijin's voice was faintly heard through the phone.

 "Ow, ya know! _He_ said it, Fujin, ya know! Why do you have to kick _me_, ya know?!"

 "RAGE," Fujin's just as distant voice replied.

 "Not the sai, ya know! Not there, ya know! Seifer! Help, ya know!"

 "CrapIgottagobye," the traitor smirked/sighed and hung up. 

 "Thank you for your patronage," Squall snarled at the phone and threw the smaller part at the bigger with a loud bell sound. 

    The commander straightened up and snapped his fingers before Zell's insane, constricted grimace. The madness flashed away and the martial artist immediately stood straight again, saluting the commander of SeeD beside the valiant sharp shooter.

 "At ease," Squall grimly said and made a striking, pointing pose at the door, "move out, for the glory of the plot!"

 "Yessir!"

    The two mercenaries spun on their heels and marched out to the elevator. Hitting the first floor button Irvine sadly glanced back towards the closed door.

 "He's not the same without her," the sharpshooter worriedly concluded, "did you see his eyes?"

 "Nope, my sight was clouded by the mist of rage, sorry," Zell said, "what about it?"

 "I can feel him having a mental breakdown right now… we have to find Rinoa quickly, without her he misses a piece of his soul."

 "Yeah… that's deep and stuff…"

    The elevator plummeted towards the ground level and the two men stepped out.

    And ducked to avoid having their skulls smashed by Selphie as she came bouncing up the stair. She hit the wall above the elevator, slid down on the floor and jumped up again, catching Zell in a neck-crushing embrace.

 "Zelly! Oh I missed you sooo much!" she cried through the madly happy grin, "I love you sooo much, you're so sweet and caring and Irvine just suffocates me! Blah!"

    Irvine just waited with a brave, expressionless face until Selphie glanced at him. Her brief grimace was torn up in a heavenly smile and she shot away from Zell, pouncing the sharpshooter. Irvine stumbled backwards into the rounded wall while the tattooed teenager slumped to the floor, violently gasping for air.

 "Oh Irvy! I love you sooo much, I don't care about all your flirting with everything remotely female, I know that deep down you really love me and me only!"

 "Thanks, I love you too…!" Irvine wheezed, his face turning slightly bluish just like Zell's had done.

    Selphie bounced off the cowboy's chest and danced down the stair.

 "I gotta go, gotta prepare for the Garden festival!" she sang and in her excitement bounced into the water encircling the elevator structure.

    Zell and Irvine crawled over the floor and fought their way up on shaky legs to watch Selphie dash towards the nearest emergency ladder, leaving a stream of boiling water in her wake. 

 "Good thing I have the pigtail girl as an option," Zell croaked, rubbing his neck, "speaking of which I wonder what her name is today…"

 "No time for that now, we have to find Quistis… oh…"

    Irvine stumbled back to the elevator wall and fumbled with the intercom, picking "Commander emergency" on the quick-pick.

 "Yes?" came Squall's monotone voice through the speaker, slightly raspy due to bad technology. 

 "Selphie is working on the festival," Irvine reported, "we'll have to raise the defenses."

 "Good call, Irvine," the commander acknowledged, "I'll see to that those bastards will get a nasty surprise when they attack us during our weakest moment, whoever they are this time."

 "Roger that, over and out."

    Irvine turned off the small box and turned to his friend.

 "Alright then, better find Quistis," the cowboy said, "do you think she's brooding in her loneliness in her room or the secret area?" 

 "Let's check her room," Zell said with a slight grimace, "if she's in the secret area she's probably in the middle of a hot scene with an author's avatar character, and that's one thing I can live without seeing."

    He shuddered violently.

 "Been in those a few times too many meself…"

 "Oh please, don't talk about things like that," Irvine said, his face turning a slight shade of green, "I just had lunch!"

    Zell nodded, apologetically. 

 "Sorry. Wait…"

    His disgusted look melted into one of complete euphoria.

 "Lunch?" he purred, starting down the stairs.

    Irvine cursed and ran after the martial artist, leaping from the middle of the stair to tackle Zell just as he reached the floor.

    The traditional scene with Dr. Kadowaki's wrapping up and nagging about being more careful later – _after_ she had spent half an hour being mystified about the cause of the broken bones and found out that Irvine was carrying around a deadly disease that would kill anyone eating fried oranges of course – the two SeeD's were heading towards the dormitories.

 "Why did you have to do that?" Zell grumpily asked, cracking his shoulders, "you broke my neck, man!"

 "We have no time for hotdogs, we have to save the existence of mankind from being sucked into a black hole of eternal void and stuff!" Irvine snapped, adjusting the sling for his broken arm. 

 "But… hotdogs…"

 "Oh for heaven's sake, man!"

 "I can hear them calling me from in there," Zell sighed and threw a longing glance at the cafeteria doors, "they are all alone…"

    Irvine stared at his friend, grabbing the blond SeeD's shoulder with his good hand. 

 "Zell! Snap out of it! You're hypnotized for Hyne's sake! Listen to yourself, completely lost! Think of Pigtail/Wendy/Lisa/Jessica/Feena/Dagger/Tifa/Terra/whatever her name is this time!" 

    The martial artist blinked a few times. Slowly he raised a pointing finger from a fist.

 "Irvine."

 "Yes?" the sharpshooter worriedly said, one inch from dragging Zell back to the infirmary in his toenails if needed. 

 "Me. Hotdogs. Cliché."

    Irvine paused. After a moment his hand fell. 

 "Oh, sorry."

 "'S'okay," Zell brightly said, "now, let's grab some hotdogs!"

    Irvine sighed, took a hold of his friend's collar and dragged him down the hall despite the kicking and screaming. 

 "We're not here to grab hotdogs, Zell," the cowboy patiently sighed, "we're going to grab Quistis and go with her to Galbadia so that she can get it on with Seifer. And then we might rescue Rinoa if we're lucky."

    Zell fell silent for a few seconds, thinking the middle sentence over while Irvine did the same.

 "Well…" the martial artist finally nodded approvingly, "I guess that fills a bit of your dirty jokes quota."

    Irvine muttered something under his breath. It sounded like "So much time, so little new ideas…"


	2. Dead characters with amnesia

Chapter 2, Pity the children

Finally the two SeeDs reached the girls' dormitories. And, since there had to be a lot of elbow room for extra-low-budget lemon/porno fics, for some reason the two poor SeeDs found themselves unable to remember which room that belonged to Quistis. For the same reason they settled for the idea to check a few random rooms – without knocking of course, since that would ruin the already questionable plots completely – to see if they could find their whip-wielding ally.

    They walked in on seven Mary Sues in the shower – which was peculiar since not even the SeeD rooms had their own bathrooms – and five others of the same kind who were in the middle of questionable activities of which one involved Xu and the others various male and female heroes from animes, games and fantasy epics turned into movies. 

    After spending several hours working their way through the so called "stories" since no poorly made author character ever lets a hero escape if he's within his/her reach, Irvine and Zell crawled up to Quistis' door. 

 "We're… not talking… about it… ever…" Zell rasped in a weak voice.

    Irvine shook his head without any force.

 "Never… as… usual…"

    They fought their way back onto their feet, weakly rapping at Quistis' door.

    There was no reply.

    The two men exchanged hesitant glances. 

    Irvine reached out his good arm and tried the handle, very carefully. 

    The door was unlocked, sliding up without the slightest effort. 

 "Quis?" the sharpshooter said, frowning. 

    No reply. 

    Slowly Irvine pushed the door open, revealing a darkened room. The blinds locked out the sunlight and the wind from the moving gate caused thin paper shreds to fleet across the dark floor. There wasn't a living thing inside the room. 

    Literally.

    Irvine turned on the light and sucked in his breath. 

    Zell cautiously peeked under the sharpshooter's arm – since he was too short to peek over the high shoulder – and sighed.

 "Aw, man…" the martial artist groaned, "I hate this stuff. So damn messy."

    Quistis had been murdered. Very murdered.

    Heaving a deep sigh Irvine entered the room, carefully stepping over the pools of blood, torn diary pages and shattered wine bottles. He gently reached out and stroke the blond locks that laid sprawled over the silky pillow of his friend's bed. 

    At least she was still dressed this time, though the wound through her chest looked no less icky. 

    Irvine took out a small tape recorder and pushed the red button.

 "The time is 04.37 PM," the cowboy announced, checking his watch, "former instructor Quistis Trepe, SeeD rank A found dead by Irvine Kinneas and Zell Dincht. Reason of death; one hella big hole in her chest. No weapon in sight, room is a mess. Signs of struggle proven by last sentence. We will now proceed with the investigation."

    He turned the recorder off and banished it back to a hidden pocket in his jacket. Then he took off his hat and scratched his hair.

 "Okay…" he muttered, "what's the next step again?"

 "I guess we call the doctor and Squall, and then we start watching security tapes," Zell winced, "boring…"

    Irvine looked thoughtful for a moment.

 "But wait, wasn't Quistis supposed to fall for Seifer in this story?" he said, frowning.

 "She's better off this way," the tattooed fellow forcefully stated, "though, that does screw up the plot. Unless…"

    They exchanged glances and turned around, walked out and closed the door. Setting off down the hall again while staying as far away from all dorms as possible, the two SeeDs kept all senses open. 

    Just by the exit they met a pale and haggard Quistis, heavily leaning against the wall with a confused expression.

 "Yep, it's a hero-proclaimed-dead-found-alive-with-amnesia story," Zell concluded and watched the blond woman with compassion, "I guess it's also one of those really sappy love-of-my-life-nurses-me-back-to-health. Ick, man! It's _Seifer_ for all meat products' sake!"

 "Well, at least it's not Zone or Wedge," Irvine grunted.

 "Nah, even they would be better. Though they are even worse loosers than him…"

    Quistis looked up as the two men walked closer, staring at them as she tried to fight her way through the thick mist in her mind. All she remembered was a feeling of loss and sudden pain…

 "Hey Quis, no time to explain, we're going to Galbadia to fix you up and save a friend along with the world," Irvine briefly informed, hooking up his good arm with Quistis' weak one and dragging her along.

 "Who are you? Who am I?" she mumbled in a confused, slurring voice but didn't protest as she was more or less carried away by to her two complete strangers.

    As his three warriors set off towards the greatest adventure of their lives according to this html file, Squall was still in his office and checking off another cliché while he waited for news. Once again the phone was being screamed at, though the poor little thing had done nothing wrong.

 "I hate you! You are a _horrible_ father! You just left me and sis to rot there in that orphanage, you didn't care one bit! And you know what, you suck too! Go get a leg cramp or something!"

 "Uh, Squall," the voice on the other side said, "it's me, Kiros."

 "Oh," the commander said in a calm voice, "sorry."

 "It's okay. Here, I'll let you talk to Laguna now."

 "I appreciate it."

 "No problem."

    A couple of seconds later another voice spoke on the other end of the line.

 "Hey son, I just wanted to tell you that I love you more than anything else in the whole world," Laguna said in a puppy eyes voice. 

 "I hate you, dad!" Squall screamed.

    He continued to rant about how much he hated the president of Esthar for ten minutes.

    As his son finally paused for breath, Laguna felt a tap on the arm and turned to Ward. The mute giant nodded and held up a cluttered schedule for his friend and boss to see. Laguna read the tiny text that was pointed out and sighed.

 "Sorry son, I have to cut it short," he said to the phone, "I'm scheduled to hold a speech and get assassinated with tomato darts at five o'clock, so we'll have to finish this later."

 "_And_ you choose your job before me all the time!" Squall snarled. 

 "Yeah, I wish I didn't have to do that as well," Laguna apologized, "I'll call you tomorrow, promise. Oh, and take some aspirin, you know that Elle will send you to the dream world in a few minutes or so to fix our father-son relationship, unless she gets assassinated too of course."

 "Fine! And don't ever call me again!"

 "Good, talk to you tomorrow."

 "Whatever!"

    Squall slammed down the phone. He then proceeded to pour up a glass of water from the jug on the corner of his desk. After this ritual was done he pulled out a bottle of aspirin from one of the drawers and freed a couple from their tiny prison. 

    When he had swallowed the painkillers with a few gulps of water he leaned back in his chair and counted.

 "Five… four… three… two… one…"

    The all too familiar, shrill beep tore through his mind, forcing him to press his hands against his skull. Violently rocking back and forth a few times he finally lost the hopeless battle and slid out of his chair to the floor, dozing off by the power of his and the rest of the gang's sis.

    He was dragged through vision after vision of Laguna's life through the eyes of the bumbling soldier, listening to long discussions with Kiros, Ward, random bartenders and overly beautiful lost loves with an "M.S" stamp on their foreheads. Pain roared through Squall's soul as he watched his father's vision turn blurry with tears that were stroked away by old friends or various bypassers – a lot of them with the other hand on a keyboard. 

    After a while, Squall simply fell asleep out of sheer boredom. 

    In his dream, he wandered down a great hall, each step echoing in the darkness surrounding him. Candles floated into existence on either side of him and his boots began to meet a darkly blue carpet instead of cold stone.

    Pictures of women in strange outfits, horrible makeup and peculiar eye color haunted the other side of the burning candles, flicking in and out of existence while calling out in despair. Their cries were distant and muffled, hardly more than breezes though their expressions spoke volumes.

    Squall sadly watched his beloved Matron pass by for a few moments, closely followed by a vision of Adel – at this point the commander looked the other way in pure disgust, with more enthusiasm regarding a vision of a happily waving and badly dressed Kefka (for reasons unknown, perhaps he was selling makeup designs…) – who was replaced by Ultimecia. The sorceress of the future reached out for the wandering SeeD with a desperate expression. For a moment her eyes looked eerily familiar, and her flooding hair fell around her shoulders to become a silky, raven-black veil.

 "Squall…" the blood-red lips formed in a silent scream, melting into a more natural color as well.

    The commander watched Ultimecia's transformation into Rinoa go back and forth a couple of times before she melted away.

 "Warning acknowledged," he murmured with a sigh at the repetition and walked onwards.

    Finally he reached the end of the carpet and candles, finding a pool of darkness by his feet. But not for long. As Squall stopped the magical cover fell away to reveal a broken body sprawled on the floor. 

    Raven hair fell over a heaven-blue, stitched jacket adorned with a pair of white angel wings, mostly bare legs shining against the chilly, dark floor.

    Squall dove onto his knees and tore Rinoa into his arms, with little surprise finding that she wasn't breathing. Her face was pale, the once vivid eyes closed in the peace of death.

 "And so it will be," a half-female, half-male voice said from above.

    With a growl Squall looked up, and further up since there was a high stone stair in the way, meeting the silvery eyes of the widely feared – at least since the start of the story – bishounen sorcerer, leader of the purple-green-blue carnivore cannibalistic aliens from outer space. His(?) long ocean-green hair gently flapped around his pale, striped and spotted face like the waves of the ocean. Frightfully translucent, pink robes moved with the hair, caressing the stone throne that the new nemesis sat on. It did not look very comfortable.

 "I take it that you have decided to make me your knight?" Squall asked.

    The sorcerer nodded with a cruel snicker.

 "Yes, that's the plan."

 "And you'll make my life living hell when I refuse?"

 "According to the manual yes, and gladly so. I'm a sadist, you see," the new greatest evil of all time happily informed.

 "Been there, done that."

    With a grunt Squall stood, still carrying the life-less Rinoa in his arms despite protests from his back that he had not lifted her with his spine held straight, which had strained the bones more than needed.

 "But I assure you," the commander bravely challenged, "that after all I have been through with insane fanfic authors, there is nothing…"

    He was interrupted by a tap on his shoulder and he turned. Ruby eyes glared straight back from a deathly pale face surrounded by a thin flow of blue hair. A leather plate adorned a muscular chest, but most of the stranger was shrouded in his crimson ocean of a cloak.

 "You have much to learn, boy," the dimension-crossing guest grimly said in a cold voice, "but despite myself I will offer you some advice. Never, _ever_ say that you have been through the worst that anyone can think of, that only invokes their inspiration. Got that, youngster?"

    He waited for Squall to nod since there was nothing else to do.

 "Good," the stranger said, "then I'll just resume to die trying to find my sister. Good day."

    And with that, the strange visitor opened a flashing, dark hole in the chilly air and leaped through with snake-alike movements. The rift in time and space neatly closed. 

 "Whatever," Squall muttered, a bit hesitantly though.

    He looked up at the master of the purple-green-blue carnivore cannibalistic aliens from outer space.

 "Can I go now?" he wondered, "I have reports to read and more plot to take care of."

 "Sure," the bishounen said, leaning his cheek in his hand with a seductive smile, "but rest assured that we will meet again."

 "Lovely."

    Squall faded back to the waking world with a sigh of relief. 

    And found himself ripped backwards into the dream and dark hall again.

 "What now?" he snarled, glaring up at the thing on the throne. 

 "Sorry," the sorcerer apologetically said, "I forgot to tell you my name."

    The commander nodded with irritation, shifting his feet to be able to keep carrying Rinoa. 

 "Just tell me then, my back is killing me."

 "Aren't we impatient, eh? I like that."

    The sorcerer neatly cleared his throat and straightened up, his hair and robes swirling dramatically in the nonexistent wind.

 "The name that has brought fear throughout the world of my kin is… drumroll please."

    The candles shivered in the thundering sound.

 "Susan!" the sorcerer declared, the drumroll ending in a *badapishhh!*. 

    Lack of speech ruled for a moment as the long-lasting sound faded away.

    Slowly, Squall's right eyebrow went up. 

 "Susan the Sorcerer?" he asked, squinting at the chest behind the pink veils.

    It _looked_ pretty flat, but it was hard to tell with all the swirling.

 "Yesss…"

    Susan's eyes narrowed at thin air, his pretty-boy face twisting into a grimace of pure hatred.

 "I will enslave humankind and destroy the universe because of my parents' cruelty; their condemning of me by giving me a woman's name! They wanted a girl… they never loved me!"

    Squall glanced around while Susan's heartbreaking sob shivered through the air, the commander only wondering where the hell that haunting violin music was coming from. This was a situation simply screaming for a…

 "… Whatever."

    He glared at the mourning spoil of a man and used an altered version of his earlier plea:

 "Can I go already?"

    Still sobbing, Susan waved his hand dismissively. 

 "Sniff… sure… sniff… they'll pay… sniffety sniff…"

    Squall faded away again, more resolutely this time. As the knight did so, Susan snapped his fingers. 

    Upon the call, something unspeakable looking like a purple-green-blue pile of glue slid down the carpet, ready to carry out any master-plan its lord had in mind.

 "My faithful servant… sniff," Susan said, neatly wiping his nose with a red handkerchief, "be a dear and call Kuja, I need a hug." 


	3. Presidental murder attempts and more Sue...

Pierson: Yup! We shall nevurrr surrender!

Everyone else: Thanks a lot for the reviews, and fear not, this shall continue for a good while! And I always finish what I start, so don't worry about being left hanging. 

Disclaimer: Repetition from the first chapter; I don't own them. Square(enix) owns the FFVIII characters. The new characters appearing will have their disclaimer at the bottom to avoid spoilers for this chapter… muhahahaha… 

Chapter 3, Mary Sue is bleeding 

Despite the fact that Squall probably fell headfirst into another heap of clichés upon waking up, we'll give him a short breather and take a look at Esthar instead. Oh look, there's a great crowd in front of the palace! Looks like Laguna is holding his speech! Shall we take a closer look?

    … Bah, you don't have a choice _anyway_. Here we go!

 "Soon we'll have managed to clean out all of the monsters from the Lunar Cry in the game, my fellow citizens," Laguna enthusiastically promised while cheers and plastic (no sharp objects around the president without permission) roses rained over him from the ecstatic crowd, "then we can start preparing for the next batches of them, which we all know that the fanfics will send upon us."

    Boos and groans followed this one. Laguna sadly nodded.

 "But look at the bright side," he said, smiling as he folded the papers against the table before him, "in the future, when the next generations of Children of Fate, all the kids of Squall and the other original heroes are going to save the world, they'll know us as the one who changed the saying 'it's raining cats and dogs' into 'it's raining iron giants and behemoths'!"

    And the crowd roared with laughter.

    Standing by the side of the stage, Kiros pressed a hand against his forehead and groaned.

 "Man, he's stupid…" he muttered for no truly apparent reason, since the joke had been rather fair for once if not worthy of such praise that the Estharians seemed to think.

    Ward silently nodded. As if he had a choice. Dr Odine just looked around worriedly.

 "Now what are you involved in?" Kiros demanded as he noticed the scientist's acts.

 "I am not yet zure," the good doctor sighed, "I rezieve zo very many tazkz and orderz from variouz veird conzpiratorz zat I forget about zem if zey do not zend me notificationz. I can't recall hearing from ziz nev zorzerer hovever."

    He shook his head.

 "Vhat vorriez me iz that whenever Laguna iz azzazzinated, zey aim for Ellone next. You knov zat makez me irritated."

 "Ah yes, then I understand," Kiros nodded.

 'Sad,' Ward signed.

    Up on the podium on the middle of the scene, Laguna checked his watch.

 "Will the tomato darts assassin please hurry up, you're five minutes late already," he finally spoke into the microphone in a concerned tone, "I don't want to complain but it's not like your kind to be late…"

 "Sheez!" shouted a person who with ease came running through the crowd, pulling a black mask over his face, "can't a guy have lunch!? Fine, fine, I'm coming!"

    Since it was for the plot, nobody tried to stop him either when he reached into a pocket and pulled out a few red vegetables. Nobody save from all the guards who unlike the assassin couldn't make it through the crowd no matter how they tried.

 "Hyne, he's stupid!" Kiros snarled and broke into a dash together with Ward.

    But as soon as they got up on the stage, their movements got caught in slow-motion mode and though everybody else moved normally, the two that tried to save their friend slooowly inched forwards with their mouths and eyes wide open in horror – and frustration.

    Laguna moved in the same way as he tried to duck, though even slower than his pals.

    Odine watched this with an intrigued look and took out a pen and notebook after a moment to record his sightings. He had never really managed to figure out what caused this flux in time and space, but it sure looked stupid and he'd like to know if it was possible to control. Such a device would save him a lot of time since it probably would shut up all those noisy docnappers and evil hiring calls if their bosses just got their hands on such a useful weapon.    

    The assassin calmly aimed as nobody was even close to being a bother to him. And threw.

    Laguna fell, red liquid staining his beautiful and neat green suit. Immediately everybody could move normally again; the president hit the ground and his two advisors were by his side within a second while the assassin fled through the panicking crowd.

    Pinching his nose with one hand while he tried to pull out the darts from the mess of rotten tomatoes on Laguna's chest, Kiros shook his head.

 "This sibly has to be the stupidest ode yet," he sighed.

    Silently, Ward dug out a handkerchief and tried to dry off the worst of the mess.  

    Laguna opened one of his eyes and groaned at the stank. 

 "This will get my drycleaner guy that car he wanted…" the president grumbled with a grimace. 

    Kiros and Ward exchanged glances, both just able to think about how stupid they thought their friend to be. Even if they really tried to think of something else for a change.

Meanwhile, Squall woke up. And looked up. And realized that he looked up into a pair of green eyes, round emeralds set in a face as beautiful and sculpted as a Greece statue – and just as alive. Red hair splashed down a pair of shoulders like a waterfall, spreading over the sleek and yet strong arms covered in the marine blue SeeD uniform.

 "Sue…" the commander wheezed in horror as a cool hand came to his cheek.

 "Sue?" a soft, singing voice questioned in confusion, "you must still be… dizzy, commander… my name is… Mariah."

 "Mariah…" Squall murmured, trying to sit up. 

    He found that his arms and back seemed to be glued to the floor however, and his head appeared to be stuck on the intruder's lap. Inside, he was screaming like a banshee and trying to escape the bind, while his body however wouldn't obey.

 "Are you feeling… better?" Mariah asked, with enough dramatic, sensual pauses to drive a man insane, and not with passion I tell ya.

 "Yes… I think I'll… lay here for a while, if you don't mind…" Squall mumbled through his teeth. It sounded more like a forced squeaking though. 

 "Of course not," Mariah "shyly" smiled while she "tentatively" stroke the poor commander's "aching" forehead.

 'Mariah…' Squall thought, unwillingly, 'passed the last SeeD exam with flying colors, modest and loved by all, able to make even the student uniforms look like ball dresses… danced with me, Zell, Irvine and Seifer… however that worked… on the graduation ball… turned down all the other men there… excellent cook, knows sewing, lovely singing voice, has a tame baby blue dragon… her GF, "Archangel" is her sister, she's the daughter of Ifrit… **_somebody help me_**!!'

    Mariah watched the pained expression on Squall's face with concern; he was trying to break free and she could feel it. Smiling, she moved her alabaster hand to his cheek again.

 "You look sad," she gently said, "is it because… of Rinoa?"

    Squall used all he ever had learnt about torture and battles to try stopping his tongue from delivering the sappy reply that the Sue was trying to drive out of him.

 'Hmm…' Mariah thought, her warm eyes turning colder with determination, 'a slippery one you are… but you will be mine! _MINE_!'

 "She doesn't deserve you after that," she instructed, "it was cruel and egoistical."

 "Ghhyeee…" Squall groaned, wishing he could smash himself in the face.

 "Yes, it's horrible!" a sudden voice said from behind, "to think, getting kidnapped by a bunch of slime balls and a bishie, how could she?! Is there anything more egoistic?" 

    Mariah turned her head with a gasp, enraged at the heresy of disturbing her first romantic moment with Squall. The commander, on the other hand, slumped on the floor in relief.

 "Who are you?!" Mariah demanded from the random, female student who casually leaned her arm on the back of the commander's chair.

    The young, indistinct woman stretched a little and cracked her neck, then took out a note block from a backpack she was carrying, flipped a couple of pages and cleared her throat with her fist against her lips.

 "Mariah Ifritdaughter, it is my duty to inform you that you are charged with messing with the Final Fantasy VIII characters, mainly Squall, Irvine, Seifer and Zell, turning the SeeD commander into a babbling vegetable, making idiotic pauses when you speak, not having a grip of reality as seen in your statements about Rinoa, making your sister a GF, being the daughter of a GF, and being a Mary Sue. Hit her, Tyler."

 "That sounded a bit too weird…" a random male student commented as he merrily slammed the flat side of Mariah's gunblade into her back head. 

    The Mariah Sue fell with glazed emerald eyes.

 "Okay," the guy said, scratching his head, "now what about her GF sister?"

    The woman looked at Squall, who was getting to his feet with a relieved sigh.

 "Say," she said, "I don't recall it being said here, so just checking… Bahamut isn't the god of GFs, is he?"

    Squall raised his eyebrows, then decided against arguing with the strange couple and thought for a moment. He owed them one, after all. 

 "I don't think so," he finally said, "just the king of dragons as I understand."

    Tyler and his partner in crime exchanged glances.

 "Well, I guess we head to the Final Fantasy IV moon then… that might work. Hafta get that thing out of her head to kill them both," the latter finally said.

 "Isn't that against regulations?"

 "Whatever. We have an excuse."

 "True. Oh…"

    Tyler reached for his backpack and pulled out what looked like a pen with a small red lamp on. He held it up to Squall.

 "Good thing we finally got a pair of these," the peculiar savior smiled, "look at this for a second, commander."

    Squall did so.

 "Thanks, you two," he honestly said just before the white light flashed and erased all his memories of the Mariah Sue and the two agents from the fabled Protectors of the Plot Continuum.  

    Since the scene was reset a la Men in Black, the commander awoke from the vision to find himself on the floor, sighed, rubbed his temples and worked his way back up in his chair.

 'Why, why, great Hyne _why_ are they all dead set on making me their knight?' he mourned and rested his face in his hands as he leaned on his desk.

    From afar he heard a choir of high-pitched, teen girls' voices screaming:

 "Just look at yourself in the mirror, you hot hunk!"

    Squall locked the door and barricaded it with all the furniture in the room apart from his desk.  

    Then he went back to reading reports. And had to dig his way past an armchair and mini coffee machine later when he wanted to file them. 

New disclaimer: 

The Protectors of the Plot Continuum belong to their original creators Jay and Acacia (I _love_ you guys!), though Tyler and his partner, Kirsten, belong to Pierson as he's the creator of the "Department of Mary Sues: Final Fantasy Continuum". 

I'd give you a link so that you could see the original works of Jay and Acacia, as well as Tyler and Kirsten mauling FF-Sues, but I've noticed before that the script on ff.net eats links. But you can find Pierson's tales in the fanfic archive of RPGClassics (misc. crossovers) and as for the original PPC, just run a Google search. They're really easy to find :)


	4. Fujin's RAGE and how to cure amnesia

Chapter 4, Abuse the Power

Meanwhile, on the train to Deling City, Irvine and Zell sat on the sofa of the SeeD wagon while Quistis laid in the bed to their left, trashing back and forth in nightmares caused by her memories' attempts to break free from the fog. She wasn't mumbling and screaming however, as Irvine had cast a Mute spell on her half an hour ago out of sheer irritation. He had heard the same stuff a hundred or so times too many already, and after a while there was no drama left to be heard in the desperate, broken cries. 

 "Nothing here to see!" Zell called at the roof, pleadingly raising his arms in the same direction, "can't we just arrive already?"

    And so they eventually arrived to the great capital of the holy land of all conspiracies.

 "Thank you!" the fist-fighter yelled at the sky as he stepped off the train, getting fleeting but not too surprised looks from bypassers.

    No problem.

    And with that we also managed to kill the good ol' "breaking the fourth wall" joke. Don't you feel relieved now that it's over? Or _is it_?!

    Anyway… 

 "Alright, now to find Seifer and his goons," Irvine nodded as he too stepped down on the concrete platform of the crowded station, turning around to help Quistis get out of the train.

    He sighed as he saw her stand paralyzed on the short stair's highest step, leaning on the train car's wall and staring at the hundreds of people moving about before her with fear in her wide eyes.

    Irvine added a Blind spell to her Mute and Amnesia affliction and dragged the fumbling woman onto the station and through the crowd.

 "I _hate_ these kind of plot devices!" he shouted along the way to nobody in particular. 

 "Me too," Zell called while he pushed his way after Irvine – the people didn't seem to move aside for the one not leading one of the main-main-romance characters in this particular plot, "but personally I hate those Second Generation fics where our kids are the worst brats alive and we have to act as if we're proud of them even when they break SeeD regulations and stuff just for kicks!"

    Irvine didn't stop for a moment, because he knew that if he did his mind would start to remember all the kids he had "had" with Selphie and various other strange women. He'd admit that some of them had been lovable… most had been fake saints thinking that nobody saw what they were really up to, though. Ick. Then again, Squall and Rinoa were the couple who were mostly under the "new hero child" curse… and if their kid picked up a weapon below the age of twelve everybody knew what to expect…

    The cowboy's thoughts were cut short as he was hit straight in the face with a blast of sunlight. Blinking, he looked up to see a thin figure standing on top of the stair leading out of the station. The idea was probably that whoever it was should look cool and dramatic up there, but in the current light Irvine only saw a stick-figure.

 "FOUND," a rather hoarse female voice announced.

 "Heya, Fujin," Zell grunted and almost fell flat on his face beside Irvine's boots as he finally broke through the crowd. 

 "FOLLOW," the silver-haired woman announced, turned around and froze in mid-run.

 "I will _not_ hunt you through half of Deling!" the blond fist-fighter snarled as he and Irvine led a stumbling Quistis up the stair.

    They reached ground level and shooed away the small crowd that had assembled to drop art critique about the human statue.

    Fujin fell to the ground as Zell dispelled the Stop spell he had cast on her, since she had been frozen with only the tip of her right foot still on the pavement.

 "MEAN."

 "Not at all. Now none of us will have to run like idiots, and we'll probably get to where we're going quicker if you just lead us there in a straight line," Irvine said, handing Quistis over to Zell to give their former enemy a hand.

    For a moment Fujin looked like she'd protest, but then she got stuck considering which would create the greatest risk of later-plot romance; to take Irvine's hand or slap it aside. To be or not to be… 

 "BAH," she finally said, getting up on her own without letting her one-eyed gaze touch the offered help again. And she definitely didn't allow herself to consider how the hand looked, because that would have guaranteed sappiness later on. 

Following Fujin, the three SeeDs made their way through Deling, towards the fabled Arc the Triumphe copy under which the great last battle of Disc 1 had been fought.

"You could have just told us it was here we were going and saved us all some trouble, you know," Zell casually said.

Fujin turned her head and gave him a meaningful look with her single eye. Zell considered it for a moment, then shrugged.

"Oh well, wrote a note or something then. That should have been possible..."

"IRRITATED."

"Okay, okay, don't give me that kick-in-the-shin look... to change the subject, isn't it irritating that it seems that no author ever seem to remember that you actually _can_ speak normally."

Fujin seemed to consider a simple yet expressive word that could show the world her anger over the fact that her heartfelt speech to Seifer in Lunatic Pandora ever was forgotten in the whirlpool of fanfic authors. Finally she gave up and heavily sighed, bowing her head in a nod.

"PISSED."

"I hear ya," Zell compassionately said. 

Their discussion was halted by Irvine's - fifth - stumbling on Quistis as her worsened state caused her to fall forwards and drag him with her all the time. Some swearing and a casting of Float later the cowboy felt a little better. After all it also got much easier to drag the amnesiac along when she wasn't touching the ground.

Fujin, who had politely stopped to wait together with Zell in the shadow of the huge construction, drew a Scan spell from a random passer-by and cast it upon the flailing instructor. As she got the other woman's full situation cleared out, the albino turned to Irvine and pointed at the silently struggling Quistis.

"LEGAL?"

"Probably not, but who ever heard of a fic where the heroes sued each other for status effects?" Irvine shrugged, "besides, she probably won't remember anything of this after Seifer cures her."

Fujin shook her head and wandered off, raising her palms to the darkening heavens. 

"MEN."

Half a minute later she shoved the heroes through the door leading to the Arc's enterior, pointing at the ladder leading into the darkness of the...

"Not the sewers again!" Zell groaned.

"BABY."

But Fujin then dug out a set of four noseclips from her pocket, which she handed out. Getting Quistis to hold still long enough to get the clip on her nose was hardly worth the trouble. She was silent and couldn't see, but her motions with arms, legs and grimaces showed that she was not feeling very pleased. 

"ESUNA?" Fujin casually asked as Zell for the second time landed on the floor by her feet after a lucky straight left from Quistis. 

"It's a Love-fix-me-up-fic," Irvine grunted, groaning as he fought to hold his friend still without using any useful but suggestive grips since he wasn't the other part of the romance, "we're too stupid to be helpful.

The albino woman watched the fight for another while, then looked at the small hole leading down into the sewers, and back to the fight.

"SUGGESTION."

"Yes?" Zell squeaked from the floor, where he was curled up in a fetal position after a lucky straight kick.

General Caraway wandered back and forth in his office, glancing at his pocket watch and stopping to sip from the cup of coffee on his desk every once in a while. From the floor below him came sharp clashes, gunshots, and other traditional sounds of battle.

Finally, the hidden door swung open and Fujin hurried out, closely followed by Zell Dincht. After him came Irvine Kinneas, who...

"What in Hyne's name has happened to her?" the general asked with raised eyebrows, pointing at the rigid Quistis who floated peacefully a couple of inches above the ground with her outstretched hand tightly held by Irvine. Her face was frozen in an angry growl, empty eyes fixed on nothing.

"Nothing to worry about, Sir," the cowboy assured while he and Zell saluted, "she's just paralyzed."

"And blinded. And floating. And muted," Zell helpfully added.

Rinoa's father opened his mouth, thought better of it and closed it again. Clearing his throat he straightened up further.

"In any case," he said, pursing his mouth, "my mansion is under attack from the government, who found out that I was supporting the rebels against the purple-green-blue carnivore cannibalistic aliens from outer space - a rebellion set up in record speed, I might add - and now Seifer and Raijin are down in the hall fending off half the army."

"Alone?!" Irvine and Zell exclaimed, getting ready to dash towards the door for a valiant rescue.

"No, some fourteen year old boy with a gunblade was helping them, so I don't think that you need to worry," the general calmed the SeeDs. 

"Oh, okay..." Irvine said, leaning Quistis against the wall, "how about you brief us in the meantime then?"

"Certainly, first..."

But of course, Seifer had to dash in right then, his white jacket flying behind him like the cloak of a true knight.

"Steven was killed by a couple of soldiers, funny that, I've never seen any female Galbadian soldiers before, but that's off the subject!" he dramatically called, swinging his gunblade and finally pointing it at Irvine and Zell, "come on, we need backup ya sissies! Fujin, I'm counting on you!"

"FIGHT."

The albino chick pulled out her Pinwheel from a pocket in her pants - thanks to the same powers that let seven teenagers carry around a dozen magazines and a few hundred bottles of medicine without slowing down the slightest - and rushed past her friend out into the corridor to help Raijin fend off the evil squadrons of faceless soldiers.

"Seifer," general Caraway said in a strict voice, "you are dripping blood on my carpet."

"Eh?"

Seifer looked at his gunblade and its red coating. Coughing, he hid the weapon behind his back.

"Right," he said, "now then... what's up with Quistis?"

"Paralyzed, blind, mute, floating and amnesia," Irvine courtly informed.

Seifer gave him an odd look, then sheathed his weapon in the same manner as Fujin had drawn hers.

"Esuna, anyone?" the knight dryly said.

Irvine, Zell and Caraway immediately slammed their palms into their foreheads.

"Oh, why didn't _we_ think of that?" they faithfully chorused. 

"Honestly..." Seifer smirked and wandered over the floor, turning Quistis straight and reaching up to touch her cheeks.

"I think I'm gonna puke..." Zell muttered, hurrying towards the door, "excuse me but I'm better off smashing some brains in with my bare hands!"

"Don't leave me here!" Irvine cried, but found his feet stuck on the floor while Zell narrowly escaped the sappy scene. 

Glancing at Caraway the sniper saw the general struggle as well, but they were bound by the rule of Witnesses of at least One Healing Step. Sighing they reluctantly resigned themselves to their fate.

"Healing breeze through your veins, Esuna," Seifer spoke, closing his eyes. 

Quistis landed and fell into her helper's arms with a small shriek. She straightened up in panic, tightly grasping the shoulders her hands had landed on to stare into the blue eyes where bitterness hid.

"S... Sei..." she stuttered, looking confused as the words slipped past her lips.

"Hey darling, I hear you have amnesia," the knight gently said and kissed her forehead, withdrawing a red rose from a pocket, "don't worry though, I'll cure you, I swear. I love you, Quistis. Here."

And with that he took her hand and folded her fingers around the thin stem of the flower, not needing to be careful with the thorns since he already had removed them to make it simpler. 

"Now I have to go save my friends down in the hall, talk to you later hon," he said and rushed off, leaving Quistis standing there, blinking at the flower.

Then she looked up.

"Err, hi?" Irvine nervously said as the instructor's eyes narrowed.

"You..."

The rose hit the floor, its delicate petals being crushed by Quistis boot as she stalked towards her tormentor. Irvine tried desperately to back off, finding that he _still_ couldn't move. The spell of Healing must still have been in the works.

Quistis just came closer, her fingers bending like claws.

"Uhh..." Irvine frantically muttered, searching for any means of escape in his mind and in the room.

He happened to look at the wall which the players never got to see in the game, which due to that was left to imagination. What happened to be there was a collection of weapons, and salvation!

"Look! A convenient plot device!" Irvine called, pointing at something on the middle of the wall.

Quistis had no choice but to look due to those words, her eyes being glued to the coiled, greenish whip hanging on one of the hooks.

As if hypnotized she headed towards the Memory Trigging item, and Irvine took his chance to flee towards the battle.


	5. It's AUs and birthdays all over the plac...

Squarenix still owns them. Even Kefka. Konami owns Alucard, even if he's not really showing up. I own the sorcerer. For better or worse…

Part of this chapter was written as a birthday present for an author friend of mine, but I left it were it was since it also deals with AUs and horribly out-of-character stories. (the fic is called "Tales from a Parallel Universe" (and VERY rightfully so!), and if you're interested you should easily find it with a Google search on the title and author name (KaiserVonAlmasy) – I'd tell you just where it is but I might be breaking rules by flaunting other sites all the time, so I'd rather not).

Onwards!

Chapter 5, For the Love, with capital L even!

Irvine rushed down the dimly lit (strange that considering that all the lamps seemed to work a second ago) corridor, following the sound of battle towards the stair in the main hall. By its foot stood already Zell, Seifer, Fuijn and Raijin, their weapons - apart from in Zell's case of course - slicing and crashing through the air against the literal ocean of men in Galbadian uniforms. Irvine halted and pulled exeter from a hidden pocket, catiously walking a little closer to get better aim. Even if it mattered little with the whole bottom floor being targets. 

Just as he placed his foot on the first step of the stair however, a bright flash erupted around him and he stumbled downwards for a few seconds with a shriek, all the way enveloped in the strange light. Vaguelly he could hear his allies below shriek in similar manners, and there was a female scream from somewhere behind him. 

If he had still been in Balamb Garden, he would have heard several others scream in the same way. 

Sandra curiously looked into his magical mirror which was set up beside his throne.

The sorcerer's voice echoed through the darkness of his lair, and his servants fled in panic as the words clung to the walls, slithering through the icy air of the base...

"Eh? This wasn't in the plan..."

Irvine came too, blinking in surprise as the light left him. Then he stared in horror at the scene below him, with the surprised soldiers and dead bodies among where Zell Dincht, Seifer Almasy, Fujin and her boyfriend Raijin stood, armed to their teeth and blinking stupidly. 

Then he noticed the gun in his hand and let it go with a gasp.

"What is going on here?!" he called in a shrill voice, "I will have to report you all to the headmaster!"

But nobody seemed to hear him. Seifer was staring at his gunblade and the blood covering it, throwing it on the floor - causing a couple of soldiers to stumble backwards in panic - with a violent tremble tearing through his body.

"Good heavens!" he cried, entwining his fingers and falling to his knees, raising his hands and eyes towards the ceiling, "forgive me for these sins I have committed Father, I knew not what I was doing!"

Fujin looked down at her clothes.

"Where's my denim jacket and jeans!?" she shrieked, stumbling backwards into Raijin's stunned grip.

"Like, oh my god! This is so totally messed up!"

Irvine surpressed a disdainful groan and glanced over his shoulder, seeing the resident drama queen of Balamb Garden coming down the upper corridor, whip in hand... WHIP?!

"Quistis Trepe! That weapon is against regulations!" the nerd-boy called in disgust, gleefully taking out his report notebook.  

The blond bimbo looked down and stared in fearful intriguement. 

"Like... does this go well with my dress?" she questioned.

In Balamb Garden, Squall blinked at the report he was holding and wondering why he was reading that piece of trash. Looking around he also wondered why he was in the headmaster's office, and why the door was barricaded. But not for long, as he had more important things to do.

Reaching down below the desk he triumphantly withdrew his beloved boom box. Flipping his dreadlocks absentmindedly and briefly wondering why they weren't there, he turned on the music on a volume that should have turned a snake deaf after two minutes. 

In the quad, the slaves... uh... helpers of the Garden Commitée which still hadn't managed to flee looked up in confusion as the shrill chirps and random bouncing stopped. They quickly looked away again as Selphie Tilmitt coldly regarded them with gazes that would kill if physics had allowed it.

Disgusted by all the bright colors around her the gothic girl swept out of the quad towards the darkness of her room to write morbid poetry. On the way she broke past Xu and Nida, who were whispering to each other while blushing crimson.  

The scene with Edea and Cid got too bloody and was censored. One of the lady's lines is however allowed.

"Finally! We are Ultimecia, and now we shall akive Time Kompression!"

In the library, a pig-tailed girl picked up a shot gun, a manic glint in her eyes.

"Zelly boy... will be... mine!"

In her prison Rinoa narrowly avoided choking on a piece of bread. One of the guards quickly ran into the cell and helped her cough it out. 

But when the chaos seemed to be complete, a pure, helpful voice rang through the minds of all the twisted characters.

'Attention everyone, this is Ellone,' they all heard, looking up in surprise, 'I know that you are all feeling a little confused right now, but I have a book here which explains the whole thing. Search your hearts and you shall find the answer to the riddle.'

Hesitantly the Balamb people did as they were told, more because of that Ellone seemed to be the only one knowing what was going on than anything else. 

And they found the answer.

Seifer got to his feet - quickly finishing his prayer first of course - and Irvine lowered the notebook. 

All who watched the maniacs turn peaceful were too stunned to say or do anything - which once again was lucky in the case of the soldiers who already had been stunned a moment earlier.

As one, the characters looked to the skies, smiled, and took in a deep breath. Then they all called:

"HAPPY TWENTY-FOURTH BIRTHDAY, KAISERVONALMASY!"

"Well," Seifer said, scratching his head one second before the light once again enveloped them all to undo the temporary change, "that sure was peculiar..."

Returning to normal, all the characters went back to what they had been doing before the birthday present occurred. Squall did this with a little less good hearing, however. 

In Caraway's mansion, the battle quickly sped up again, Quistis diving down the stair with a confused but determined expression. 

Covered by the bullets that Irvine sent raining over the soldiers, the five warriors kept a brave stand with magic and brute force, the evil soldiers falling over each others' dead bodies. But still, they just kept coming.

"Will somebody cast Curaga on me, I'm almost out of HP!" Zell shouted after a few minutes.

The battle froze as every single person in the world fell to their knees, pressing their hands against their head. This also included the monsters and Sandra with his army. 

A massive choire of a million (well, with the monsters taken in account, bear in mind that there're hardly are more than 70 or so humans on this planet) voices shouting in unison rose towards the uncaring skies.

"FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING SACRED, NO HP AND MP TALK!!"

Then they all resumed activity again. 

Well, almost. 

Zell spent a few moments beating himself over the head, angrily cheered on by his allies. Irvine had stood on top of the stair when he had fallen to his knees to scream. You do the math. 

"OK!" Seifer finally called as he had sliced through a few more soldiers while shouting profanities at chicken-wuss for rendering their backup unconscious - not stopping to wonder how he managed to say "okay" only using two capital letters, "this is getting desperate! Quistis, I'm gonna get beaten up so that you can go psycho and do something big to save your love, got it?"

"Wha?" the blond ex-instructor gasped.

"Alright!" Seifer smirked and dropped Hyperion, "Raijin, gimme a hand big fella'."

"You never talked like that in the game, ya know..." the more muscular part of the posse idly commented.

But he grabbed Seifer's waist, drew back and then flung his friend into the ocean of soldiers. Leaving a Seifer-shaped imprint in the enemy force.

Quistis let out a scream that almost shattered every ear in the room. Her whole body began to glow and her feet left the floor.

"COVER," Fujin said, grabbed Zell's shoulders and held him up between her and Quistis as a human shield. 

Raijin hid behind his albino friend.

Up in his office, general Caraway buried his face in his hands and groaned as he heard the next sound and the room shivered around him, mourning the loss of his great hall. The renovation would cost him another fourhundred thousand gil. 

"Phuah!" Zell dryly gasped and breathed out a small puff of smoke, while pieces of the ceiling peacefully floated downwards around him and those who had so cruelly used him.

"FINALLY."

"That was colorful, ya know..."

Quistis stood, her back bent and her hands on her knees while she gasped. The whip laid by her feet.

Slowly she looked up and set her eyes on a gray spot among all the fallen men. Her steps echoed in the silence as she walked - save from the weak groans from those who were still alive as she stepped on them - towards Seifer.

When she was just a couple of feet away he groaned silently, then hopped up on his feet and started dusting himself off.

"Good work Quisty, thanks a lot. You saved my life even if it's not worth an imp's ass and all that."

"Sure..." Quistis began, but Seifer grabbed her arm and cut her off.

"Well then, let's go out and smooch in the moonlight for a disgustingly sweet scene during which you regain your memories from my kiss and recalls a valid point in our search for Rinoa," he said with an uncharacteristic soft smile and dragged her off towards the mansion's entrance.

"Do any of you get the idea that he's enjoying this?" Zell coughed, trying to keep his balance as Fujin dropped him.

"NO FOOL."

"Right, right..."

"Hey Fujin, ya know? Can you, ya know, heal Irvine so we can prepare for the next plotpoint, ya know?" Raijin asked, stretching his back.

A second later he was hopping around on one leg after another traditional kick. 

"ROMANCERISK!" Fujin disdainfully snarled.

"Sorry, ya know!" Raijin groaned, grabbing the remains of the stair's fence to keep standing.

"I'll do it, in a sec..." Zell grunted, trying to brush the ashes out of his hair. 

As he eventually bent down to piece his cowboy-friend together, he briefly wondered where Irivine's broken arm had gone.

A few healing spells later Irvine was sitting up on the crumbling lowest step of the stair, glaring at Zell every now and then. The four waited in bored silence for Seifer and Quistis, not daring to risk engaging conversations that could be used for sappiness later. 

Eventually the two blondies came back in through the door, arm in arm and carelessly stepping on groaning half-awake soldiers on their way.

"So, how did it go?" Irvine casually asked.

"I'm going to kill you when we're done here, Irvine," Quistis dearly promised.

"You tell 'em, darling," Seifer said, assuringly squeezing her shoulders.

"Fine," Zell said with a dismissive wave, "what'll we do next?"

"The password is 'sandwich'," Quistis grimly said, pursing her mouth.

"Oh, goodie!" Irvine triumphantly called and stood, "now we just have to figure out where to go and where to use the password, then we can end this plotline! But we're all set so let's go people!"

And as they hurried into the night of Deling City, not even Quistis bothered to wonder where the heck she had learnt about the mystery password. 

Susan leaned back, a smirk plastered across his pretty face.

"Excellent... it's all coming together now... soon I will have conquered them!"

He stretched a little, left the mirror on but leaned back and dug out a catalogue from his scantily clothing. Flipping the pages he murmured:

"Well, where were we?"

A long finger came crashing down on one of the pictures.

"I assure you Susan," Kefka happily said, "this make-up design is really popular in Castlevania. You'd look lovely."

Susan regarded it for a moment, then shook his head.

"Gray just isn't my haircolor..."

"Oh, but Alucard's hair turns a little more blond in a certain light..."


	6. Pity the characters and the classics

Chapter 6, Pet peeves, exclamationmarks, and the most abused cliché in all fandom 

The valiant heroes dashed out of the city and headed for the Tomb of the Unknown King. It took them about one and half a minute to reach it (the three random encounters they butchered along the way not counted), and this despite the fact that on the map it seemed that the distance between the huge town and the tomb was about ten, fifteen times the length of Deling City's radius. But since it was a fanfic, the laws of logic apparently didn't work on geography either.

As they reached the entrance however, Quistis halted so suddenly that everyone else ran into her. After spending another two precious minutes sorting themselves out, the heroes let the heroine speak.

However, the National Anti-Drug commitee arrested the author for that clumsy use of words which could send horrible signals to younger readers that the heroes of FF8 were, in fact, on acid. So it took another few weeks and a lengthy explanation at a trial before the author came back and could finish another bit of the story. 

Luckily, the characters had stood frozen in time all this while, unwillingly patiently waiting. 

Quistis spoke up. 

"We can't go in there, remember how that dungeon works?!!" she exclaimed, "we'll need the map to keep track on where we are all the time since that damn thing follows our perspective in there all the time!!!!!!!"

Groaning under this unarguable logic and clearsightedness, not to mention the sheer weight of exclamation marks and of course the repetition of some words to make things even clearer for the readers in case they missed something, the whole gang ran back to Deling City and turned it upside down - literally since they were giants while walking around on the map - to shake out the seller of the Great Map of The Tomb.

After getting this (and paying an insane amount of money for it), they ran back to The Tomb again, all this during a timespan of less than five minutes. Not even Ultimecia would have managed such a great time kompression.

Finally managing to descend into the darkness of the ancient crypt, the people headed into the dusk and stuff only enlightened by Seifer's glowing charisma and the torchlight that Zell had conveniently brought before leaving Garden, but which hadn't been graced with the honor of being mentioned earlier. 

Surely a lot of vivid descriptions of the dripping walls, the underground chill and its interesting plantlife that had adapted to live without sunlight would have been really neat here, but who cares? 

Simply walking straight forwards, they reached the heart of the maze, finding the brige to the island of the tomb itself already being conveniently down. 

"Hold up!" Seifer warned, flinging out his right arm into Irvine's chest and sending the cowboy stumbling backwards, wheezing as he tried to regain his breath, "it might be a trap!"

The heroes grimly nodded at each other - or in Irvine's case pathetically bobbed a bit as he still hadn't recovered - and then stroke a thoughtful pose each. 

"I have an idea..." Quistis finally said, stepping forwards.

"We've been reduced to bit characters already, ya know?!" Raijin bitterly murmured to Zell who nodded in tired resignment. 

Quistis took in a deep, calm breath and then cupped her hands around her mouth. 

"Sandwich!!" she bellowed on top of her lungs. 

The echo danced through the damp, chilly air of the crypt world for almost a minute before it finally died away.

There was a beep.

"Password acknowledged," a high-pitched, robotic voice announced. 

From the gate of the inner chamber came a series of suspicious clicks and whirring sounds as mechanical deathtraps withdrew. 

"Good work, darling!" Seifer cheered, horribly out of character for the sheer cuteness of it all. 

Quistis gave him a triumphant smile and then crossed the bridge, followed by the valiant - and coughing - warriors. 

Meanwhile, Rinoa felt disgusted, filthy, and downright bad. But to escape from this hellhole and save her love and her friends, she was prepared to do anything. They'd die if she didn't make it out, caught in the horrible schemes of the fearful sorcerer Susan. 

That was why she now tried to strike a conversation with a random guard. 

"So, you get many guarding jobs?" she asked, willing a smile as she smiled through the bars separating her from the rest of the world. 

"Yup," the Galbadian soldier said with a shrug, "I tend to die on the work though. But I get extra cash for that. You know, Squall always needs to kill somebody along the way, the others tend to do with just knocking out and stuff. I guess that it comes with the fact that he's the main hero and has a sword... gunblade, I mean. If you have a gunblade you have to kill people."

"Uh-huhhh..." Rinoa murmured, fighting to sound both interested and stay awake at the same time. 

She couldn't help it. Everything people said at give times seemed to just irritate or bore her, no matter what they were talking about. Her moods were after all a huge plot device. Bah. She'd be bitching about something and act like a brat soon enough. Inwardly she deeply sighed for her crying dignity. 

Suddenly there was the sound of steps coming from the stairs on the other end of the dungeon, and a white jacket flashed in the torchlight as a flapping blade cut through the air. Or was that the other way around...?

The guard sighed, drew his sword, nodded at Rinoa, said his last prayer and then slumped on the floor in a pool of blood that colored his blue uniform into a sickly purple while his sword clattered over the floor with a dull, hopeless sound. 

Several yards away, Seifer watched this and scratched his hair for a moment before shrugging and resheathing his unused weapon in thin air.

"Hey Rinny," he smirked and waved.

Rinoa raised her hand to wave back. Then the characterization hit her.

"AAAAIIIE!!!" she screamed so that the walls cracked, "somebody save me! It's my ex-boyfriend who tried to kill me, he's back to finally kill me but probably not after taking a horrifying revenge on Squall for nabbing me!!"

Quistis came down the stair.

"And he's teamed up with my rival!" Rinoa hysteriaded on, "I'm doomed! DOOMED!! Mercy!"

"It's okay Rinoa!" Zell cried out as he stumbled down the stair, pressing his hands against his ears, "he's on our side again!"

The imprisoned sorceress nodded apologetically as she stumbled backwards, gasping for air as she was allowed to shut up by the plot developement.

Quistis hurriedly came over to the prison and bent down to search the mysteriously dead guard's body for the keys. She quickly found them (with a great deal of relief) and spent a few minutes trying out the hundred or so darn keys until one of them finally clicked in the lock.

"Okay, let's get outta here, ya know!" Raijin said, cautiously keeping an eye on the entrance.

"Thanks a lot guys_oahh!_!" Rinoa called.

That shriek was since she had stumbled on the plate of mouldy bread that had been her lunch, dinner and breakfast since she was captured (a few hours or so ago, hard to tell with all this stupid time kompression), which sent her flailing forwards, through the open door and over the floor into Seifer, who automatically caught her in his arms. 

Rinoa began to apologize, but was cut off by a barrel of thundering steps.

"Aww, shit!" Zell gasped, staring at the shaking stone steps of the stair, "fangirls!"

"TREPIES!" Fujin shrieked, taking cover behind Raijin.

Teen girls with varying looks stormed down the stair and quickly began to fill the narrow, badly lit and described dungeon corridor. Hundreds of eyes set heatedly on one person.

"You slutty bitch!" the warcry rang, "trying to steal Seifer!"

Sighing, Quistis grabbed the paralyzed Rinoa's arm and pulled the raven-haired girl up behind her.

"I HATE these ones!" the former instructor snarled, reaching for her whip.

But I'll cheat you of the great battle against the fangirls, to finish off the cliché of copping out. Ain't I a cheapskate?

Instead, we shall once again set our sight upon Esthar, and the hospital wing where Laguna had been brought after the attack. On his sides were his faithful friends Kiros and Ward, whom had stood with him through good and bad and really stupid situations, and his dear little Ellone, sobbing her pretty face off and drenching his weak hand in salty tears. 

Dr. Odine stood by the foot of the bed, fidgeting with the TV and the little camera on top of it which were already stationed there. 

"It zhall be finizhed zoon," the doctor assured with a nervous glance at the pen which impatiently tapped against the bed table with some help of Laguna's hand.

"You should try to get some rest, uncle Laguna," Ellone sobbed, "I know this is important to you but it will be such a strain..."

"Don't worry," Laguna gently smiled, "it'll be fi..." 

But then he went off in a coughing fit of no logical reason other than drama. Ellone broke down in a new storm of tears while the other three men just sighed.

"Zere we go!" Odine triumphantly spoke in bastardized accent and turned the TV on.

Squall's face turned up on the screen, seen slightly from the side. His neck was bent and his eyes went back and forth as if he was reading something.

Laguna softly smiled as he saw his son again, it seemed as if the hesitant visit a week ago (enthusiastically cheered on by all but Squall himself of course) was several years away.

Suddenly Squall's eyes stopped at the corner of his eyes closest to the hospital and he jerked up, blinking at the five people assembled around and on the strict bed. 

"What," the commander spoke, slowly, "are you doing in my computer?"

"I am juzt zat good!" Odine squealed while jumping happily up and down before Ward grabbed his huge collar - or whatever that was supposed to be - and signed that if he didn't chill then the giant would throw the good doctor through the window. 

"Party pooper..." the scientist sourly sighed, crossing his arms while he was let down.

"Squall," Ellone said in a broken voice, "we had Dr. Odine help us with the camera equipment so that uncle Laguna could speak with you. He was badly hurt in an assassination attack, and might not live much longer."

"Again..." Kiros, Laguna and Odine muttered and Ward signed, grimacing tiredly.

This comment was dropped while Squall sucked in his breath slowly, involuntarily paling. 

"Dying?" Squall managed.

"I am afraid so, son..." Laguna said, his voice weak and hoarse, "but, before I die I have to tell you the truth... the truth you must know..."

"What is it this time?" the SeeD commander grunted with a roll of his eyes, but leaned forwards as he should.

"Please do not speak too long, uncle Laguna..." Ellone murmured, stroking the long, unruly locks of black hair on the pillow. 

Laguna replied by falling off in another coughing fit. As he finally ended, Ellone had almost finished another chapter of her romance novel, "Midnight Roses in Balamb's Shadow", Kiros was playing chess with Odine and Ward was engrossed in drawing a delicate sketch of a little baby imp that had seated itself in the sunlight on the window sill. Squall sat back in his chair, sipping coffee from a mug labeled "My Hero" in big, red letters on the fond of a pink heart.

"Hey, some compassion here!?" Laguna whined.

Quickly everyone cleared up their projects and took their positions again. 

"What is it... dad?" Squall said, adding the last word with a gut-wrenching, despairing hesitance. 

"What you must know, Squall..." Laguna whispered, coughing again once, "is..."

He took in a deep breath, staring down at his clenching hands. Then suddenly he straightened up with determination in the once vivid eyes where light now was fading. 

"Squall..." he spoke, "I... am your father."

The commander had balled a piece of papper and jammed it into his mouth to muffle himself before the required scream of "Noooooooo!!" had managed to draw enough air into his lungs to be freed. What came out sounded more like "Mghrugho!!". 

As he had regained control he pulled out the soaked report and glared at the screen, where he now could see Kiros, Ward, Ellone and Odine pressed against the walls of the hospital room with horrified expressions. Laguna was still in the bed, lying down and breathing heavily while pressing both hands against his chest. 

"What's _wrong_ with this author?!" father and son finally gasped in unison.

Behind Squall's chair, a dark, circular rift in time and space opened up. A familiar-looking warlock with blue hair and a red cloak stepped out, raised his hand with his pointing finger straight while opened his mouth. Then he paused, thought better of it and turned around, disappearing in the Gate again. He had far better things to do.

And smarter, too. 

"Well," Kiros finally said in the silence that had ruled for a while, "now that that's over..."

He managed to pull himself free from the wall and produced a small, red notebook. After opening it and flipping through a few pages to find the right date he put his pointing finger on the left side of it.

"Ah, here we are. Well, sad to say everyone, but we have to see to that Laguna goes and blows up Odine's lab at seven, so we'll have to cut it short."

"I have an elixir!" Ellone announced and proudly offered her uncle a sip from a miraculously appearing bottle. 

Laguna swallowed and then bolted up from the bed with a triumphant grin. 

"Alright! Let's get to... OW!" 

He doubled over, grabbing his right leg.

"Leg cramp, leg cramp!"

Sighing, the people of the room joined forces to lift the president from the floor and carry him towards the door. Except for Odine, who stood rooted in his spot with manically opening and closing lips, bulging eyes and a face that was turning an interesting shade of purple. 

"Bye Squall!" Ellone waved before she and her three "uncles" disappeared from view.

The commander awkwardly waved back while Odine bounded after the disappearing backs, croaking out curzez and pleas of mercy. 

The screen went black.

Merry Christmas everyone, and bless you for all the kind reviews!

Sad news, however; this marks the end of the stuff I already have written up, and thus it might take a bit longer than before until I can get a new chapter up. But despair not, I shall valiantly fight until this madness is finished! 

And feel free to keep suggesting clichés, I'll do my best to stick them into the story!


	7. Those Galbadians ARE good for something!

May God have mercy on my soul for the battle sequence… I'm so ashamed.

Chapter 7, MY EYES!!

It took Squall a while to recover from that horrible experience, and that while involved seven cups of coffee, maniacly reading reports and using some of the seagulls as target practice for the more explosive part of his weapon.   
  


As he was starting to calm down enough to start thinking about how to best get the bloodied feathers and glass splitter off the carpet, Xu suddenly entered.

The newly arrived looked from the dead birds on the floor to the scowling commander, and back again a couple of times. Finally she clasped her hands and let them hang before her casually.   
  


"What, are you trying to get away from the traditional killing-some-random-monster, commander?" she asked.   
  


"No," Squall scowled, "just trying to relieve tension."   
  


"That's what I said, Sir..." Xu nodded with a confused look, "why don't you go to the training center?"   
  


Squall shook his head.   
  


"I don't have time to kill a T-Rexaur in a blind fit of rage, all these idiotic clichés are already getting in the way of the reports as it is," he scowled.   
  


Xu nodded in understanding.   
  


"And what do you have to report and analyse in this story, then?" Squall scowled.   
  


"Ah yes."   
  


Xu straightened up and saluted.   
  


"Commander, we have recieved a troubling message from Timber. The resitance forces have reported an increased influx of conspiracies seen over all of Galbadia, the sky is practically reddish with them."   
  


Squall sighed and scowled, realizing that he would be the one that had to say the most apparent thing.   
  


"Not another bloody conspiracy!" he growled, sheathing his gunblade by his waist, where it faithfully disappeared.   
  


"In other news," Xu flatly continued, "Selphie has gone to Trabia Garden to fix it up and arrived safely five minutes ago, and the White SeeDs are nowhere to be seen. Here is Nida with the weather report!"   
  


And she stepped aside to let her collegue up in the command bridge past.   
  


Or rather, the guy wearing a paperbag without even cuts for the eyes over his head past.   
  


Squall finally managed to drop the scowl as he raised his eyebrows.   
  


"Nida, that is not correct SeeD uniform..." he said, somewhat uncertain.   
  


The paper bag sighed.  
  


"I know bu-"   
  


He fell silent and a hand rose up, pushing the bag upwards to reveal an astonished, plain face.   
  


"You remembered my name?!" Nida gasped.   
  


But his surprise ebbed to another sigh as he stared at Squall's suddenly completely blank look. Glancing at Xu he just saw the same. And with a cry of hopeless frustration, the forgotten SeeD resolutely pulled the bag back over his head before they could ask the eternal question about who he was. His fellow mercenaries sobered immediately.   
  


"Fine, I understand then," Squall nodded with a hint of tiredness in his voice, "what do you have to report?"   
  


"Well, Sir," Nida said under the paper, "it seems to be raining Sues and Stuarts. I took the liberty to move off Balamb Island and into the ocean to get rid of some of them."   
  


"Nida?" the commander said.   
  


"Yes, Sir?"   
  


"Go back to the command bridge and hit the gas until it breaks the floor."   
  


"Yessir."   
  


Nida spun around and quickly marched out.   
  


"And as for you," Squall added, turning to Xu, who saluted again.   
  


"Yes, Sir?"   
  


"How did you get in here despite the fact that I had barricaded the door?"   
  


Xu looked around at the furniture neatly arranged around the room just as it had been at the start of the story.   
  


"Well Sir, about that..."   
  


But she never got to explain herself as a soft ring tone beeped out over the entire Garden.

"Attention, everyone," Nida's voice casually called out over the speaker system, even if he by laws of physics really shouldn't have made it up through the rebuilt elevator to the command bridge, but there went slight time kompression again.   
  


Squall and Xu turned their eyes towards the ceiling as if that would help any.   
  


"It seems like we're being invaded by Galbadia again," Nida continued just as calmly, "they're coming at us from the west on high-speed motor boats. Everybody..."   
  


He paused and a loud yawn shivered through the Garden.   
  


"... Sorry about that," Nida added and cleared his throat, "everybody get into your positions, please. 'Other Character''s are kindly asked to the front lines where you will be killed in a teary scene. The Commander will get to you during your last minute of life to mourn the loss, guaranteed."   
  


The speakers went off with another soft beeping, but not quick enough to kill Nida's hardly supressed snicker. He was getting good at telling that lie without starting to laugh in mid-sentence, at least.   
  


Even the SeeDs and older cadets that were sluggishly dragging themselves towards their battle stations smirked a little at the last sentance before going back to the bored and irritated faces.   
  


Xu sighed.   
  


"Should I go too, Sir?" she asked.   
  


"Yes, yes..." Squall said while re-unsheathing his Gunblade from thin air and placing it straight downwards before him, with the tip touching the carpet, "now leave me alone, I'll get down to the battle as soon as I've finished the scene where I realize how much I really love Rinoa now that she's gone and I'm going to fight for my life and Garden's safety."   
  


Xu fled.

They would fight Galbadia on the roofs, they would fight Galbadians in the Quad, they would fight the enemy in the Training Center and feed the remains to the monsters there if they had to. And everybody joined in, with hearthwarming, border-crossing enthusiasm, in the desperate escape from the suddenly reappearing Selphie who wasn't pleased with the sight of the ruined Garden Festival stage. Sugar-rushed dismay was naaasty business.   
  


That Selphie had gone to Trabia and then suddenly returned, nobody cared about. It was common knowledge that no matter how many times she went to her old Garden to help out, it would probably not be mentioned in the story again and the reconstruction would definitely never be finished. If work wasn't disrupted by an accident involving falling stuff or rabid monsters looking for a meal, then the author simply would forget about it after s/he had used the ruined Garden as a plot device to just whisk a character away that s/he just didn't like.   
  


Isn't that so? Hmmm? But I don't like Selphie either, so I don't blame you.   
  


And there's a bit of random author's note in the middle of the story. Aren't they irritating? Hey, we're having a decisive Garden vs. Galbadia battle here, who cares about what the writer thinks about a particular character? Bah. Insensitive, that's what those authors are, will keep the readers on their toes with stupid interruptions in the text or hanging for weeks from those bleedin' cliffhangers. It's not fair I tell you. Why in _my_ day they would have been hanged in their toes from the wall for that kind of thing and...   
  


Uh... what was I telling you about again? Oh right, right, bloodshed and Selphie outscreaming Sacred while he's on his way into orbit. Or is that Minotaur? Hah! I just out-clichéd the cliché of "Not having a bloody idea what yer writing about but trying anyway"!   
  


Anyway... back to the story, without further ado.

Squall rushed into the elevator and took it down to the ground floor and then he whipped out his gunbalde and then he started killing teh Galbadian soilers that where attacking the garden and then all the other seeds cmae runing and then they all fighted and bet all the evil soulders and then they all shouted "Victory" and all the not dead soilders ran away from garden and then the author broke down crying because she had written such a horrible paragraph.   
  


And with common badfic logic, nobody wondered how "all the not dead soilders" managed to run "away from garden" considering that they were in the middle of the ocean between Balamb Island and the bridge connecting Esthar with FH and the rest of the world.   
  


But the day was saved, everyone had hotdogs to celebrate, the bodies of the slain author created characters were taken cared of (tributes would be paid to the Galbadia army for the help as soon as possible), Squall went back to reading reports and everything was peaceful until this paragraph ended. And it's over now. So the trouble started pouring in again.   
  


For the second time of the story and in a very short time, Xu entered Squall's office and saluted.   
  


"What is it now?" the commander asked, rising from his seat and once again dropping the report.   
  


He had lost count on how many times he had been interrupted as he had tried to get through today's workload, and was considering giving up. But there was no telling when this madness would stop - if it ever would. So it probably didn't matter what he did either way.   
  


Xu saluted - again.   
  


"Irvine, Zell and Quistis are back from their mission, commander," she briskly announced, "they've got Rinoa and three suspected traitors which should be thrown in jail or shot at first sight."   
  


Squall smiled. That wasn't too much a rape of canon by now, considering all. With his heart dancing with joy he hurried out of his office and back into the elevator, slamming his hand into the button that would take him to the ground floor, giddy to see his love again forgetting about Xu and thereby leaving her behind.   
  


Which was lucky, since that made the work easier for the exorcists sent from the Protectors of the Plot Continuum to knock Squall out and smash the official strategy guide of FFVIII into his chest while shouting:   
  


"Begone, foul author, the power of Square compels you!"   
  


They finished their mission and escaped before the elevator reached its destination. Squall woke up as the doors slid open, stood up and stumbled down the stair, nearly falling and breaking his arm. But since Irvine already had done that in the beginning of this story, the commander was spared from that trouble.   
  


Below the stairs, he found his group of friends, and former enemies. The SeeDs, once SeeD cadets and the Sorceress all looked tired - Rinoa was even hanging, slung over Seifer's left shoulder. He held her securely with his arm, while the right arm was affectionately snaked around Quistis' waist.   
  


Their demeanor, however, was less affectionate but sweetly agreed upon by all seven.   
  


They looked rather disgruntled. And dripping wet from head to toe.   
  


"KILLER," Fujin sourly said, reaching down her own collar and withdrawing a thin, squirming fish.   
  


Disdainfully she sent it flying into the pool surrounding the Garden's heart.   
  


"Yeah!" Zell agreed, while desperately working on keeping his melting cement-mousse from running into his eyes, "what's the big idea with suddenly bringing the Garden into the sea? We had to swim here, man!"   
  


"We had to do something about the recent influx of Mary Sues and Stuarts," Squall scowled.   
  


He turned to Seifer.   
  


"How is Rinoa?" the commander demanded.   
  


"Oh, she's fine," Seifer smirked and let the raven-haired sorceress slid off his shoulder, whereupon she sprawled on the ground coughing up salt-water, "just soaked like a rat, like the rest of us."   
  


Squall immediatedly dived to his love's side and helped her get up on shaking legs. She stared up at him, bit her lower lip and then pushed him away.   
  


Everybody gasped. Even Rinoa, for some reason. Like this:   
  


"GASP!"   
  


"Wha-what is it, Rinoa?" Squall finally managed to ask after having choked on the sharp intake of breath that nearly had made his lungs explode.   
  


"I... I..."   
  


Rinoa gulped, wringing the salt water out of her hair.   
  


"Come on baby, you know I'll forgive whatever it is that is wrong," Squall promised, nearly gagging himself due to the out of character, horrid "fluff".   
  


Irvine was on the floor, curled up in a fetal position due to hysterical laughter, Seifer leant against the nearest wall with Quistis patting his back while Fujin hugged the shaking Raijin and Zell still fought against his own styling cream that probably would fry his eyes upon contact. He was lucky not to have heard what his friend was forced to say, and he'd never know it. That just blows, doesn't it?   
  


Rinoa was unfazed, however.   
  


"I... um.... I........" she still stammered, "it's.........well........um......"   
  


The amount of periods gave the people time to get themselves together, so when Rinoa finally managed to speak out what she wanted to say, everyone was just peachy again. And their clothes had dried, too!   
  


"I...... Squall.... I'm... I'm pregnant."   
  


And everybody GASPed, again.   
  


What an exciting turn of events, isn't it?!!


	8. Slash, script and rock and roll

Chapter 8, Grand battle royal… not

"Pr... pregnant?!" Squall stuttered, "again?" 

Rinoa nervously nodded. 

"Yes... I'm sure, I... I'm sorry to shock you like this, Squall... but I'm sure..." she mumbled, "it's the ten-thousand or so time I've felt this; I know..." 

"Bu... buh..." 

Squall caught himself falling too far out of character again and forced himself back into at least vague control with all his power of will (and having junctioned 100 Ultimas on that stat finally seemed to help!). 

"Who's the father this time?" he asked, carefully placing his hands on Rinoa's shoulders as if he was afraid she'd shatter, "is it me?" 

Rinoa started spluttering again for no apparent reason, which of course meant that Squall needed to elaborate further. 

"Did somebody hurt you while you were imprisoned?" he asked, all ignoring the fact that she'd only been kidnapped for... for... eh... good question... a few hours and it was anatomically impossible to just KNOW that she was pregnant that fast. 

Rinoa kept spluttering. 

"Well, was it the sorcerer, Susan?" Squall tried and glanced over his shoulder to glare, "or do I have to kill Seifer?" 

At this, everyone else of course had to *gasp!* again and stare at Seifer who did an literally incorrect *sweatdrop* and wildly shook his head, sending the imaginary water drop splashing all over the warriors standing too close. But since it was just a figment of their collective imagination, nobody got really wet. 

"It's... it's..." 

Rinoa took in a deep breath, looked Squall square in the eye (trying to avoid drowning in his eyes, not only to save time but also because that was, in all honesty, a really gory thing to do and a pain to clean up), opened her mouth with determination this time and got tackled to the ground by a young woman in a SeeD uniform. 

Sparkles flashed from the grayish eyes of the woman as she gracefully somersaulted back to end up face to face with the blinking Squall. With a sweep from a strong yet elegant hand she swept her shoulderlength of brown hair from her face and smiled a stunning smile at the commander. 

"Excuse the intrusion, brother," she said in a singing voice with an accent fit from the exotic land where she had grown up - that explained the healthy tan - to become a legend before she came to graduate in Balamb, "I hope you don't mind me cleaning up that trash. Now, do you finally see that it's time that you realize your true feelings and admit your feelings for Zell like you're supposed to?" 

Over by the larger group of cast, a fist fighter made a funny sound and hid behind Raijin in pure panic.   
Squall smiled. 

"Good afternoon, Stormlily," he said, "so happy to see you again after all these years apart." 

And with that he grabbed her hair, drew his gunblade and sliced the new Sue's head clean off before she had time to react. Without even looking he swung his arm backwards and slammed the head into the chest of the strangely generic SeeD cadet that had been dashing towards the siblings. 

"Here!" the commander snarled, still not looking while the headless body crumbled to the floor. 

"Oh, thanks!" Tyler happily grinned and grabbed the head without flinching, "about time we got some help. Kirsten, take the body!" 

"We're not supposed to be seen by canon!" the lady of the PPC couple scowled as she stepped out of hiding and slung the cooling body over her shoulder. 

"With all the stuff going on, what's the point of not seeing you, anyway?" Squall muttered while he helped Rinoa get back on shaking feet. 

She kept mumbling "She touched me... oh Hyne, Sue germs... she touched me... germs... germs..." while her eyes manically rolled. 

Tyler shrugged with a grimace. 

"Good point there, man. I wonder what the hell is going on, this Sueflux can't be natural even for this place..." 

He looked down at the head that still slouched blood all over his uniform, and the smile returned. 

"Ah well, we got another one down. And this will make a good birthday present, too. It's Pierson's eighteenth birthday as this is written." 

A second of paralyzation ensued. Then all the canon characters started checking themselves for changed clothing, bibles, note blocks, dreadlocks and psychotic librarians. 

Until they realized that the last birthday present hadn't had anything to do with the new one. But by the time they reach that conclusion, the PPCers had already left, taking the body of Stormlily with them.

Squall pulled Rinoa close to him and gently stroke her hair for a while until she calmed down; that was understandable enough to be accepted even by canon considering the circumstances. Rinoa was quite used to be touched by Stuarts and knew how to... kinda take that, but Sues were still sending heavier shocks through her. It was the same for everyone and author avatars of the same sex. 

Mostly. In the long run it was the same horror in either case, but each shock was as nasty as the last before it got under control. 

"So. Can we get this sorted out already?" Irvine eventually asked, by now casually seated on one of the lower steps of the stair together with everyone else apart from the main couple. 

Squall immediately - fairly carefully though - pushed away slightly as he realized that he and Rinoa were in everyone's undiverted focus. 

"Yes, who is the father?" he asked, looking her straight in the eyes. 

Rinoa looked back for a moment, then took in a deep breath, threw a suspicious glance around for any sign of newly created characters, and then spoke quickly before anything else managed to get in between: 

"I don't know, but it should be you, Squall." 

She frowned. 

"Though in this story I haven't really %¤#£...! AUGH!" 

Rinoa stumbled backwards out of Squall's gentle grip, clutching her throat and wildly coughing as her speaking chords tried to rip themselves out in agony after having been forced through another stupidly censored bad word. 

When she managed to get herself under control after a handy-dandy Curaga spell, she straightened up to see Squall standing where she had left him, right hand stretched out hesitantly and left foot before the other in half a step. But he stood like a statue, gaze locked on nothing. 

The people of the stair regarded him with wary interest, waiting for whatever would happen next while silently reaching for their weapons just to make sure. 

"Squall?" Rinoa worriedly said. 

No reaction. 

She stepped closer and waved her hand before his eyes. 

His lips moved a little, but that was all. 

"What is it? Are you alright?" the young sorceress wondered. 

The lips moved again. 

"Come on Squall, wake up!" Rinoa called, reaching her mind into his, thinking that perhaps Susan had trapped him in some kind of nightmare. 

The truth was even uglier and she stumbled backwards with a horried gasp, pulling out her mind in the last second. 

"What is it now?" Quistis shouted, quickly getting to her feet together with the other spectators. 

"Run!" Rinoa shrieked, stalking backwards away from Squall. 

Sweat broke out on the commanders forehead as his arm fell and the stargazing look began to turn manical. Almost mechanically he turned towards the people by the stair. They suddenly found themselves frozen under the wild gaze of their leader/nemesis. 

Squall's lips moved again, and this time the words were heard. He spoke almost sluggishly, but at the same time with a sharp edge of desperation. 

"Must... not... suddenly... grab... Seifer... and... run... to... the... Training... Center... to... make... out..." 

A cold chill ran through the Garden, its metaphorical swooshing sound the only noise for a couple of seconds. 

Then people reacted accordingly. 

"BAD SLASH!" Zell screamed in pure horror and instantly invented a new limit break that allowed him to leap in a wide arc all the way from the stair and into the right half of the Garden pool, fleeing the immediate area with powerful sweeps of his arms and legs that sent waves halfway up the elevator spire. 

Irvine followed him, by within a second loading his rifle with a rope stuck to a fishing hook which he fired after Zell. The hook caught the fist-fighter's shirt and Irvine threw his weapon aside, too desperate to get away from any risks of finding himself godawfully incorrectly pregnant to care about his beloved Exeter. Instead he grabbed onto the rope and was ripped along in Zell's escape, water-skiing witout skis down the pool in the wake of the humanoid tsunami*. 

Seifer staggered backwards and stumbled on the lowest step, falling back over the stair with a frightened yelp. He scrambled without managing to get up, suddenly rendered completely helpless by the fic's logic. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind he considered the fact that it really should have been _him_ scaring _Squall_ by normal standards, but that thought kinda drowned in everything else. 

Luckily for Seifer, Quistis and Fujin had enough courage left to protectively step up side by side before him, threateningly raising the whip and the pinwheel. Raijin had long since fled up the stair and huddled behind the railing surrounding the second floor of the elevator structure. 

Rinoa also managed to swallow her fear and rushed up to the other two women, turning to the still immobile Squall with her palms turned at him in a halting pose. 

And the commander hadn't moved an inch.

"Alright everyone," Quistis grimly said, hardly moving her lips and not taking her eyes off the frozen Squall for a single second, "we defend Seifer with our lives, but at any sign of tentacles we run screaming. But whatever you do, not like schoolgirls." 

"I don't think even _I_ am generally characterized as stupid enough to act like a schoolgirl in face of a tentacle monster," Rinoa shuddered, her hands glowing as she began to call on her sorceress powers. 

Fujin stretched out her free hand horizontally and drew an imaginary line over her throat with it. 

"PREFERABLE," she grunted with a grimace. 

If they had discussed fleeing for any other cause, Seifer would have muttered something sarcastic. But as it was, he couldn't exactly blame him. And in either case he was far too occupied with being paralyzed in fear to bother. 

And Squall finally moved, turning slightly without moving much apart from his feet. 

Everyone froze, sending a silent prayer to Hyne to preserve them in the horrid fight that would certainly ensue. 

Squall fell over. Without moving a muscle, rigid as a poker. He even made a clonking sound when hitting the floor. 

Complete silence ruled for a few seconds. 

"Did somebody cast Petrify?" Seifer eventually suggested, starting to get control enough to try standing. 

Rinoa found herself being a main attraction yet again, immediately shaking her head. 

"Nope, not me," she claimed. 

"Well, somebody should have a look at him and see if the bad slash has passed," Quistis concluded. 

Nobody moved. 

"Really," the former instructor added, hesitantly, "I think he might have troubles breathing with his face smashed against the floor like that." 

Still nobody moved. 

"Rinoa, as the resident expert on sorceresses and knights," Seifer said with a brief flash of pride, "I suggest that you should take a look inside his mind and see what's wrong." 

"I can't." 

Rinoa sighed and let her arms fall. 

"What, why not?" Seifer worriedly asked, frowning as he finally got to his feet properly. 

Quistis and Fujin also watched the young sorceress in worried disbelief. 

Rinoa shook her head. 

"I already did that a couple of minutes ago," she said with a bitter little smile, "that was when I saw the bad slash. I can't do the same trick twice in the same story, or at least not so quickly in succession. The plot gets too repetive." 

"Ooh," Quistis and Seifer sighed. 

Meanwhile, Fujin sighed: 

"OOH." 

"Well," Rinoa said, scratching her head, "what do we do then?" 

"Throw a shoe at him?" Seifer thoughtfully suggested. 

"Too undignified for us," Quistis said with a dismissive wave of her hand, "we could always try to shock him back to life with a Thundaga though." 

Rinoa suddenly blinked, staring at empty air. 

"Oh, he can hear us at least," she said, a bright smile taking over her features, "that's a relief... oh, and he is cursing a lot at you two right now." 

"Tell me something new, Rin," Seifer snorted. 

"DOG." 

"Who are you calling a dog!?" Quistis and Rinoa immediatedly bristled, spinning at Fujin who almost fell backwards. 

The albino quickly shook her head defensively. 

"ANGELO!" she rasped. 

The two harpies turned back into levelheaded young adults at once. 

"Oh right, she hasn't done anything in this story yet!" Rinoa nodded, "good thinking Fujin!" 

With that, the sorceress put two fingers in her mouth and whistled. 

Two seconds later Angelo skidded to a halt by her feet, apparently coming from out of nowhere. 

Rinoa: *points* Go help Squall, girl! 

Angelo: *barks and runs over to Squall, turns Squall over with her nose and starts licking Squall's face* 

Fujin: GOD NO. 

Seifer: What? 

Fujin: SCRIPTFORMAT. 

Rinoa: Period, period, period.   
  
Quistis: Hyphen, underscore, hyphen, semi-colon, semi-colon.   
  
Seifer: Capital O, underscore, small o.   
  
Squall: *pushes Angelo away* OK, OK! I'm fine!   
  
Angelo: *barks*   
  
Everyone: Carat, underscore, carat.   
  
And that, gentle readers, is how scriptformat with chat expressions would sound in practice.

 SQUALL GOT TO HIS FEET AND RINOA RAN OVER TO HUG HIM, AS HE SEEMED TO BE ALRIGHT AGAIN. bUT BEFORE SHE MADE IT TO HIM HE FELL OVER AGAIN, BUT THAT WAS OKAY BECAUSE RINOA DID TOO, AS WELL AS ANGELO, FUJIN, QUISTIS AND SEIFER. NOT TO MENTION EVERYONE ELSE WITHIN A FIVE MILE RADIUS OF THIS PARAGRAPH, SINCE IT WAS LOUD ENOUGH TO DEAFEN ANYBODY WHO WAS TOO CLOSE BY. 

"My ears! Make it stop! Make it _stop_!" Seifer shouted, trying to be heard above the rumble in his own head after the screaming text. 

Vaguely he could hear his allies cry similar things, but the words couldn't really make it through. 

Afterwards he realized that he must have passed out for a while, but it couldn't have been long. Because when he awakened, the others were just trying to stagger to their feet. 

Somehow he managed to crawl up into standing, swaying but managing to remain vertical by heavily leaning against Quistis, who leant onto him. Together they managed to keep balance. 

Fujin seemed to do okay, but had given up the idea of staying erect. Instead she had plopped back down on the stair, holding her head in her hands. 

Rinoa got up and fell back down a couple of times, finally giving up and instead crawling over to Squall who was sitting on his knees and furiously rubbing his temples with both hands. Angelo was still down, knocked out cold. Small whimpers and twitches of her paws showed that she was alive however. 

"Squall?" Rinoa hoarsely whispered, reaching out to him. 

He lowered his hands as she touched his arm and looked her in the eyes, sighing. 

Then he spoke through his teeth. 

"What. The. Hell. Is. Going. On. Here. Today?" 

"You know," Rinoa slowly nodded, leaning her cheek in her hand, "I'm starting to wonder about that too." 

And as if it had only waitied for those words, a voice rung out over the Garden. Thankfully, it was a lot more silent than the deafening paragraph. 

"Allow me to enlighten you, my pretties! And your little dog, too!" 

Sandra's grand entrance didn't go off until after the echo had died off, which was long enough for everyone to finish their groaning at the new horribly overused joke. 

If I hadn't already made a scriptformat joke I could have copped out here and just written something like "Susan: *appears!*", but since I've done both script and copping out already, I'm not getting away this time. Heck, I already did these in-text author's notes too, so I should give it a rest now. 

So, to the appearance of our bishie then! 

A bright flash of light exploded in the air above the path leading towards the exit of Garden, and with a dramatical chord from an invisible piano the sorcerer Sandra appeared in all his horribly underdressed glo- 

"Hold it!" 

"Eh?" 

Susan blinked, glaring at the somewhat distant Squall, whom got up on wobbly legs. 

"Didn't you say your name was Susan?" the commander called, placing his hand on the inside path's railing to remain standing. 

"Yeah, what about it?" Susan replied, gracefully landing with all his ribbons seductively swirling around him. 

"Then why does the text call you 'Sandra' now and then?" 

The sorcerer coughed, his eyes nervously starting to shift. 

"Uh... the author doesn't have her facts straight!" he finally shouted in an irritated voice. 

"I think he just doesn't have a real reason to be evil..." Seifer muttered to Quistis, who nodded with a grunt. 

Susan/Sandra's ribbons flapped upwards to wave around his head like angry snakes as his pretty features constricted in annoyance. 

"I heard that! You'll pay for your insolence!" 

"Things like that are no threat to me anymore..." the knight muttered in a tired voice. 

"OLD," Fujin agreed. 

But they all did reach for their weapon as, by a wave of Susan's hand, the floor around the sorcerer's feet flared up for a second. As the light disappeared, the ground was covered by purple-green-blue carnivore cannibalistic aliens from outter space in various unspeakable forms. It seemed like they came in all flavors. 

Not that anyone with a remotely sane mind would wonder about how aliens taste. Ahem. Stop looking at me like that. 

"You cannot hope to win," Susan smugly said while his ribbons settled again and he crossed his arms, "even if I just said one of the first things in the book of 'Things that Villains should not say', the story is not in your favor." 

"Oh really?" Rinoa bravely called, "but we are the heroes, and we always win if the story is clichéd! You might as well give up at once!" 

Susan laughed a very girly but still typically villainous laughter. He should have gotten a prize for managing to pull that one off. 

"Tweheehaha! But no, you don't understand at all, my dear!" 

"Oh, I hate it when they say things like that..." Quistis murmured. 

"I have you all in my grip! These clichés have all but exhausted you, and you are now too weakened to fight my servants!" 

Another rumbling girl laughter followed. 

"Lo, all that has occurred in this story has been part of my plan!" 

"You plan?" Squall rasped, feeling cold sweat break out of his forehead as his brain started to throb by the unbearable clichéness of the sorcerer's speeches. 

"Yes!" Sandra smirked and raised his hands towards the roof, "I shall defeat you with a variation of the great Ultimecia's plan and be victorious where she will fail in the future!" 

The questionable logic in the last statement was discarded in front of the tense air that filled the Garden because of the last moment before a Great Revelation. 

"Remember this!" Susan ranted on, "while you slave away as my enslaved servant slaves, to do with as I desire! The name of your conqueror: Sandra, master of the secret spell of Plot Compression!" 

Silence got another few seconds of sovreignity. 

"Oh Hyne, take me now..." Squall murmured before he passed out from the weight of idiocity. 

His world flooded with darkness and he only vaguely heard Rinoa's gasp as she too fainted.

~*~

*Look! Now I've even made a crossover, to Trigun! Zell is apparently Vash's _other_ long-lost brother! They kinda have the same hairstyle, so it makes PERFECT sense!

And of course, Trigun and Vash belongs to the creators of that lovely anime. 


	9. What If and random lovepairing

I want to take this moment to once again thank all of the people that have reviewed so far. I'm very happy that you like my story, and I'll try to push in all the remaining clichés that have been suggested.

**Note: **This chapter features a big chunk of story that a friend of mine sent me as a suggestion. Who she is will be a secret until you get to the part, upon which you might be able to guess. Otherwise, her name is mentioned at the bottom. The part she wrote will be between the two *, so that she'll get the full right to her stuff! Read on and enjoy!

Chapter 9, Someone else's input

Squall awoke with a groan and pressed a hand against his eyes. A cold weight was resting on his forehead, and its moist, unruly fabric stroke his thumb and pointing finger upon his move.   
  
With a grunt he pulled the towel from his forehead and propped himself up on his free hand and arm.   
  
"Are you feeling better?" came Rinoa's worried voice from his right.   
  
He turned his head and blinked at the far too sharp light, after a few moments seeing her sitting hunched on her toes with her knees against her chest.   
  
"Where...?" he muttered, looking around.   
  
And scowling.   
  
They were in...   
  
... wait for it...   
  
... his office.   
  
In more detail, he and Rinoa were on the middle of the floor, while Seifer, Quistis and the other young heroes - including Selphie, but where she had come from was, once again, a mystery - were assembled on the carpet before the massive collection of overfilled report-filing boxes. Zell and Irvine's once again drenched clothes were making two puddles on the carpet, but nobody had the time to be interested in thoughts of dry-cleaning. The SeeDs and once-upon-a-time-SeeD-cadets' expressions ranged from a variety of worry and suspicious anticipation.   
  
Susan might have been the cause of these emotions, sitting on the commander's desk - he would have to burn it later, Squall figured - with one leg casually hung over the other. Inspecting his long, painted nails with great care.   
  
Pink nail polish, of course. What did you expect?   
  
"... I thought you were going to take us to your lair for a few torture sequences?" Squall said after a couple of silent seconds during which he and Rinoa cautiously stood, though the words made him cringe in bad, bad, BAD memories.   
  
"I was," Sandra said without looking up, blowing on his nails.   
  
He bent his fingers inwards and rubbed the nails casually against his chest, only then meeting Squall's stern iron gaze. Smiling brightly so that every single perfect tooth showed.   
  
"But then some of your pretties decided to start arguing about that Plot Compression wasn't really a spell, but an author power. They even claimed that I was a Gary Stuart or something."   
  
Squall gave his allies a rare glance of appreciation for their clear-sightedness.   
  
"Aren't you?" he then demanded.   
  
Susan shook his pretty head, smiling a little more naturally.   
  
"Nope, not me. I'm not _that_ evil. If you want proof, regard the fact that none of the women here has thrown themselves at my feet in sudden and unexplained love."   
  
There was a moment of silence. Again. They were getting horribly common, don't you think?   
  
"... Whatever."   
  
But despite his word, Squall was shuddering at the thought, and he clearly saw everyone else of his allies do the very same.   
  
"Yes, yes, I know..." Susan said, stretching his legs before he stood, "well, since you people don't believe me, I'll just have to prove it to you. Shall we?"   
  
He smiled and raised his right hand, pressing the thumb and middle finger against each other as well as anatomy allowed.   
  
"To prove that I master plot, I shall twist your minds and blatantly use an established author's plot to prove my power to you!" he exclaimed as the smile turned to a malicious smirk.   
  
He snapped his fingers. And things went straight to hell.*   
  
"Hyne, what have I done? I couldn't make it in time to the Sorceress Memorial… and because of me Rinoa is still sealed forever in a frozen tomb. Doomed to live out my mistakes… How could I have failed!?" The commander fell to his knees, looking up at the heavens for forgiveness that would never come.   
  
"Um…Squall what are you talking about?" Rinoa asked confused, tilting her head to one side in that completely in-character way - strangely similar to a canine that hears a high pitched dog whistle. "Squall, you…saved…me. Remember? Orphanage, the promise, the balcony, that night we snuck back on to the Ragnarok and were caught by Kiros, yada, yada, yada…"   
  
"Uh oh…" Seifer smirked. "I know what's happening…"   
  
Fujin nodded in acknowledgment, "WHAT IF."   
  
"What?" questioned Selphie uncertainly. "Isn't that AU?"   
  
"No, no, no…" Explained Quistis pulling out her fangirl/fanboy guide to basic plot structure. "_What if_ is where the author takes part of the plot and changes it. Usually altering the entire outcome of the story for dramatic purposes."   
  
"BAD!" Fujin exclaimed, looking down at the commander on the floor now seeming to be hyperventilating in guilt. Ironically, around that time, 'Chocobo Boy' made a rare cameo appearance holding up a sign simply stating, 'For your academy award consideration.'   
  
"Oh why Rinoa, why? Why couldn't I save you? Why must your memory hound me and your ghost drive me to the brink of insanity? I have always loved you, and if I had been stronger back then, I would have never let them take you away underneath that desert sky. How ever shall I atone for my wretched sins?"   
  
"Squall, again…I'm right here…see. You can stop the overacting now." She jumped up and down in a vain attempt for anyone to notice her. But instead, they ran to the side of their comrade, offering him their support for his personal failures.   
  
"It's better this way." Irvine stated patting his shoulder, "Think of how much she would have cost you in the shoe bills alone."   
  
"Hello…I'm right here. I can hear you guys!" Rinoa screamed in aggravation. "I'm not frozen darn it to Shiva!"   
  
"Wait," Seifer announced raising an eyebrow at his friends. "_What if_ Rinoa had been a Timber spy masterminding the entire plot of the game and we fell for it?"   
  
The group all looked at her now, eyes throwing the proverbial daggers. Squall stood up from the floor angrily, shaking a fist at her. "How could you? You tricked me into falling for you and this whole time - you were just using me."   
  
"Or wait," Seifer interjected again, having way too much fun with this. "_What if_ Rinoa dumped your sorry butt right after your pathetic attempt at a kiss on the balcony. Coming back to her one true love…me." The blond former/ex knight/lapdog/table dancer walked behind the sorceress, wrapping his arms gently around her waist. "Hi honey, don't worry. Seify won't let them hurt you."   
  
"Wait, wait, wait!" Rinoa screamed, still trying to get the pet name 'Seify' out of her head. "Stop it people! I'm not frozen, a spy, or out buying shoes! Or worse yet, in love with a guy who can't even wear his SeeD cadet uniform for the test in Dollet! Trench coats are so mid nineties _Mulder Boy_. I'm in love with Squall! This is as ridiculous as putting Squall and Quistis together!"   
  
At that moment, Quistis looked over at Squall. "Hey, that thing I said about it being a 'sisterly love' was a complete lie."   
  
"Yeah, okay that works for me." The commander shrugged agreeably, before pulling her into a deep embrace. As they were about to kiss Rinoa yelled again, trying to stop this absurdity.   
  
"I meant Quistis and… um Cid!" The group gasped in unison, looking horrified at the instructor. She slinked away from the man with the unruly, yet sexy hair, falling to the ground.   
  
"I admit it. I'm secretly in love with the headmaster. Why else would I hang out upstairs so much? It certainly isn't for Xu or Nida." There was a collective amount of coughing and gagging from the group. Out of nowhere Edea appeared, wearing a sequined outfit strangely reminiscent of a professional wrestler.   
  
"Catfight!"   
  
The guys all screamed in unison as Seifer handed out the popcorn, which too seemed to appear out of nowhere. Even Susan/Sandra had to get in on the action, opening up a small wagering booth with the Card Queen. Who incidentally, is also not pleased at all with how with the amount of cameos she gets in fanfiction.   
  
"I'm working with morons." Rinoa grumbled as the chanting and cheering continued. Although, she did have to participate in two rounds of the 'wave' that Selphie had accidentally started when Irvine pinched her rear.   
  
Convinced the 'what if' writers had completely lost sight of the game, Rinoa figured the best thing she could do was play along with this until the group somehow all remembered the original plot. Thank Hyne she'd printed a transcript out of all four disks, including side quests - for the fanfiction that she and Squall wrote in their spare time. Sadly, it was all removed from the net when they banned NC-17 stories.   
  
"Hey guys, look I'm unfrozen!" She screamed as Quistis was just about to do a belly flop onto Edea. The group stopped immediately, running over to her as if they hadn't seen her in um…seven or eight years.   
  
"You're back!" Squall yelled in uncharacteristic joy, as he gathered her in his arms and spun her around lovingly. Strangely the whole room was spinning in slow motion like a fairytale romance or corny movie on the Hallmark channel… Oh wait, no… it was just Seifer who sneezed accidentally casting a 'slow' spell on the entire group. But hey, the effect was still as dramatic as when the boat sank in Titanic.   
  
"What?" Zell screamed looking concerned at the narrator/typist. "What do you mean it sank??? I was just reading a story on the internet the other day and it safely got into port."   
  
"Damn _what if_ writers," Rinoa grumbled again under her breath.*   
  
As things seemed to have calmed down, Edea quickly slunk out as soon as she could - since the plot compression ignored her for a moment she managed to break free. As she disappeared through the door she gave her husband a quick hug and then rushed on towards freedom.   
  
Cid just gave her a quick hug back and then stood still for a moment, watching all the commotion in his old office. Then he decided that he was better off in his new office, silently taking care of the stuff Squall didn't have to handle. And continuing to stay out of everything even in the future, as nothing more than a side character whom people would now and then run to for extra advice to further whatever plot they found themselves stuck in for the moment.   
  
"Sooo," Sandra said, crossing his arms and sitting back on the desk, "are you convinced yet?"   
  
He smirked in amusement as the characters backed away from each other, pressing their hands against their heads as the plot pressure left them.   
  
"Yes, yes, you've proven your power now... we get it..." Zell groaned and fell over.   
  
"Eeexcellent!"   
  
Susan clapped his hands, and the purple-green-blue carnivore cannibalistic aliens from outer space ripped through the walls, wrapping the heroes up in their constantly transforming bodies – while Fujin, Quistis and Rinoa loudly thanked all gods they knew that they weren't Japanese schoolgirls - to take the world's last hope into true imprisonment.   
  
"Now, let's go back to the original evil plot of forcing Squall into becoming my knight!" Sandra happily said, tilting his head with a huge grin that he had learnt from Kefka.   
  
Squall was just about to groan that at this point he'd be just peachy about that if it meant an end to all this insanity, but before he could do that he was knocked out cold by a purple-green-blue carnivore cannibalistic alien from outer space's... errr... arm or whatever it was supposed to be.   
  
The last thing he heard was Sandra's chuckle. The bishie really needed to practice that evil laugh of his...   
  
The world went black again.   
  
~*~

  
Meanwhile, in another world...   
  
"_Sluuuurp!_" came from the general area of a darkly blue teacup while a free hand scrambled for a pencil.   
  
A black, theoretically straight line then crossed over the words "What ifs", "AU", "blatant ripoff", "hints at random celebrity", "Edea and Cid" and "show of power" from a list in a cluttered note block.   
  
But there was still a long list of words remaining.   
  
'Does this count as a "real" self-insert?' the author pondered, hoping to avoid having to use that cliché.   
  
The pen hesitantly hovered above the note block.   
  
Then the author's bleary eyes, peeking between the slit eyelids, noticed the word below "blatant self-insert", and the author cursed.   
  
"Aw, crap..."   
  
"_SLUUUURP!_"

~*~*~*~

And I want to thank Ashbear for her addition to this story. You rock, woman! Now all of you go read her stories too! I mean it, you _don't_ want to miss out on them!


	10. Crossover and total OOC

Chapter 10, Ooh, I'm going to hell for this one…

Squall awoke to find himself hanging on a wall in a very familiar fashion. The area around him was shrouded in a typical - probably merciful - darkness. At least save from a big spot of color in the border of his eyesight. 

Rolling his eyes he rolled his head to the side and rolled his gaze towards Susan, who was caught in the act of digging for earwax with his little finger, and quickly straightened up under the commander's glare. 

Squall took in a deep breath, let it out in a sigh and spoke. 

"This isn't going to include Teletubbies, sugar, and other idiotic so called torture, I hope?" 

Sandra's smirk cracked up in a moment of confusion. 

"Eh?" he said, "I thought those things were only an urban legend or something!" 

"I wish..." Squall grunted and slowly shook his head, closing his eyes to keep the stupid memories out. 

"Random humor, ne?" Susan grimaced, waving a dainty hand before his pretty nose as if something was smelling bad. 

"Hai," Squall grunted. 

"I feel for you, Squall-kun." 

They paused, quickly realizing that they were speaking random Japanese on top of everything. 

The screams of disgust shook the lair. 

*

In the dungeons, the wringing of hands, nervous pacing and fiddling with lock on the door ceased for a moment as everyone tilted their heads and listened, thoughtfully. Even the purple-green-blue carnivore cannibalistic aliens from outter space guards did, though what was head and toe on them was rather hard to figure out. They tilted some parts at least. 

"That sounded a little off if I may say so," Seifer smirked and resumed pacing. 

At least they had a lot of space this time. The big grotto was at least as big as a Garden classroom, lit up by torches set along the wall. The flames were strangely greenish, for reasons unexplained. But it sure added to the creepy atmosphere that otherwise wasn't given much respect. While Zell worked on the lock on the steeldoor - without the guards showing any interest in it at all even if a purple-green-blue tentacle now and then swept by past the little barred window - and Seifer paced like a caged animal, the other five prisoners were playing a game of Go Fish with a collective Triple Triad deck. 

"Chill out, guys!" Irvine called at Zell and Seifer, irritated as all their moving around and stuff made him loose his concentration in admiring the picture of Shiva, "somebody will come and save us any minute now." 

The fistfighter thought this over, shrugged and walked over to the center of the room to plop down with the cardplayers. They quickly finished their round so that he could join in. 

But Seifer kept pacing, muttering about how he couldn't stop because it was in his nature and if whoever their rescuers would be didn't show up soon his legs would fall off. 

Minutes passed and proved Seifer wrong. All was silent, save from the pacing and sound of cards hitting the ground, and of course the bland dialogue of the players requesting cards and ordering fishing frenzies. The lack of screams from the torture chamber were actually the scariest thing. 

Suddenly everyone jerked up at a new sound, a distant humming that seemed to come from the corridor. 

The purple-green-blue carnivore cannibalistic aliens guards apparently heard it too as they - if the sound spoke true - took off towards the humming, screeching eerily as they went. 

A few distant disgusting sounds came from the outside, and then the humming resumed, quickly turning out to be a very silly song going "lalalala-la-la-la" etc sung by several voices. 

"I... sure hope... this isn't what I think it is..." Quistis mumbled, grinding her teeth together. 

"Nah, doesn't sound like Teletubbies or Barney, ya know," Raijin assured, though a little nervous. 

"DISTINCT," Fujin agreed, drowning those fears at least. 

But the other option... 

Something moved outside of the window, but the prisoners were too nervous to inspect. 

"Which one of you cuties wants the honor?" a female voice giggled. 

"You can do the honors," a smooth man's voice smiled. 

"Oh no my dear friend," another man's voice smiled even wider, "you deserve it better than I." 

"But I insist," the smooth one said, "you need to work out your aggressions." 

"But you have more agressions than I, for all your rabid fangirls! Please, I insist." 

Pause. 

"Oh, fine then," the smooth one smiled, "you always manage to make me see the right side of things my dear friend. Stand aside please, I don't want to hurt anyone." 

And with that, the steel door was pierced by about six feet of a thin blade, for no apparent reason as the owner of the sword then kicked the door off is hinges and further off the blade. 

A few hands met a few faces as into the grotto stepped a tall man clad in a black coat. Most of his chest showed as his clothing wasn't completely obscuring. Loooong silver hair flowed from his head and way down past his butt. 

"Good evening everyone," he smiled, "I am Sephiroth, the misunderstood villain who has been brought onto the right track by an immense feeling of guilt after having killed my ONE TRUE LOVE and now travels through the worlds seeking for a way to resurrect her together with my dear friends here." 

A man in a blue uniform, with the spikiest spiky blond hair in the history of spikiness stepped in, his arm snaked around the thin waist of a walking blow-updoll with long brown hair and a miniskirt. And a minishirt. 

Despite their smiles there was something in the back of their eyes, a manic glint that proved that there was something inside of them that was desperately fighting to be let out and break them free of the situation they had been pushed into.

*

"I wonder what's taking them so long..." Squall muttered and tried to zone out the irritating sound of clashing chains as he lifted the cup of coffee to his lips.   
  
"Yes, really!" Sandra nodded and delicatedly sipped from his own cup, little finger pointing outwards from the grip of the pink drink-holder. Of course.   
  
The bishie scoffed slightly.   
  
"Do they always take this long to break out?" he inquired.   
  
Squall shrugged, causing the chains to complain even more.   
  
"Depends, really," he said, "they might need backup I suppose."   
  
"The plot compression should have sent something their way by now. Lazy thing, really... uh..."   
  
Susan paused and put his cup down on the small pink plate on the table. The ribbons that claimed to be his clothing rose up and swayed around him - Squall desperately focused on the table, one sight of that cloth-dance had been enough - while the sorcerer muttered in a hoarse, inhuman voice for a few moments.   
  
Eventually he finished and the ribbons obediently fell down to swirl a bit more modestly again. Susan even looked a bit pained as he spoke.   
  
"We have a Final Fantasy crossover now," he reported.   
  
Squall spat all the coffee he had had in his mouth back into the cup, wildly coughing and spluttering.   
  
"Wha-wha-whate-ever!" he rasped, trying to maintain dignity despite the fact that Susan rushed to carefully smack the commander's back to help him get all the black liquid out of his lungs.   
  
"Sorry about that, darling," Sandra said as the fit subsided.   
  
He slipped forwards, hanging his arms over Squall's shoulders and leant his cheek against the brown, unruly hair.   
  
"But we've finished the crossovers now at least," the sorcerer mumbled, "since there was that author's note about Trigun earlier."   
  
"Don't... touch... me."   
  
"Oops, sorry!"

*

Back in the grotto, everyone's full attention was on Rinoa, who just stepped into the circle they had all helped out with drawing on the ground, complete with thousands of mysterious symbols and obscure art.   
  
Of course, since it was for tension, they even got to worry about whether the trick would work or not. Especially since nobody had any idea if any of the weird symbols meant anything at all.   
  
Rinoa delicately stepped over the cold ground, having discarded her shoes and socks outside of the circle. Her arms were leant slightly back and an invisible wind moved her hair while the ground peacefully rippled like water under her feet.   
  
'I have this sudden urge to get a staff and dance on a reversed whirlpool at sunset...' she briefly thought, but shrugged it off. She had a job to do.   
  
As she reached the middle of the circle she paused for a moment, pressing her hands against each other as she assembled her will. Drawing in a deep breath she raised her arms, and the angel wings swept out of her back.   
  
A pillar of light shot down through the cave ceiling - it's magic dammit! - showering over the young sorceress as she gracefully rose above the floor with one single, slow flap of her wings. From thin air the praising songs of a ghost choir sounded, a melody raising and falling in passionate, desperate praise of one name and its fury - until Sephiroth elbowed the ghost leader of the choir to make them stop singing his official theme. The singers stumbled on the notes for a few moments until they managed to get started on the "Hallelujah Chorus" by Händel. That worked as good as anything for this situation.   
  
Rinoa was unfazed by the confusion, muttering words of summoning and life in a forgotten language she had never heard of before.   
  
The light intensified with every word, and with it Rinoa's voice rose until the spectators had to turn away and clap their hands over their ears.   
  
The explosion of light and sound flashed out of existence suddenly, and the choir overrode the rules of the song and fell into a long "AaaaAAAAAaaaaaaAAAAAhhh...".   
  
Rinoa was now floating upright with wisps and bubbles of light dancing around her, all of them rising from the symbols drawn on the ground. Her arms were stretched out before her and bent as if she was carrying something.   
  
Irvine was handing out sunglasses.   
  
Slowly, and then faster and faster, the wisps and bubbles were drawn towards the sorceress' arms, swirling around as if caught in a body-shaped cage. More and more of them fled the circle, sucked into the more and more distinct form in Rinoa's grip until the light became unbearable again and the choir's song rose towards a crescendo.   
  
As the song reached a new scream, the light flared up one last time and then died with the sound of the choir. Tifa pressed her hands against her chest, Cloud's arm secure around her shoulders while Sephiroth was busy watching the whole show in breathless awe.   
  
Rinoa slowly descended towards the ground, securely holding a woman in her grip, acting as if she wasn't at all bothered by the fact that her burden was just about the size of herself and therefore must have been a pain to carry. The glow of the circle descended with the lowering of the pair.   
  
Brown hair fell down over the sorceress' arm, set in a loose braid with a pink ribbon holding it together. Pink was also the color of the dress that the seemingly unconscious lady wore, pretty face peaceful and unmoving like the rest of her.   
  
Rinoa knelt on the ground as she landed, Aeris letting out a soft groan as she made contact with the cold, hard cave floor.   
  
Next thing the flowergirl knew, she was caught in a furious hug - from the man who murdered her.   
  
The plot compression caught her before she managed to scream however.   
  
"Oh Aeris, I'm so happy that you're back and I'm so sorry that I killed you and all, can you ever forgive me?" Sephiroth helplessly babbled, burying his face in the cherrywood colored hair to hide the hideous grimace that took over his face as his will desperately fought the sinister spell he was under.   
  
"But of course Sephy!" Aeris just as helplessly cried, "I could never hate anyone and especially not you, my love!"   
  
"My love! You love me!"   
  
Tears formed in Sephiroth's glowing eyes - partly from joy and partly from the agony he experienced at saying those words. In THAT tone!   
  
On the other side of the circle, focus was mainly on Seifer. Quistis was showering him with Curagas while Fujin threw Esunas at the speed of lightning (ironically enough). The boys stood ready in case they'd need help keeping the knight alive. Poor Seifer appeared to be the one suffering the most from the cuteness; he was on the floor, desperately kicking his legs along the floor while he clutched his throat, struggling to keep breathing through the heavy sugar-rate.   
  
Cloud and Tifa came strolling over to the happy couple with matching length of hair. As he heard their steps, Sephiroth stood up and lifted Aeris with him. With a huge smile plastered over his face he presented her like a award-winning cat.   
  
"I'm so happy to see you back!" Tifa squealed and hugged her once dead friend, then handed the flowergirl over to Cloud for a completely platonic hug.   
  
Sephiroth meanwhile began to turn to Rinoa, who was getting up on shaking legs.   
  
"I have to thank-" he began.   
  
There was a wet "chink!" and Aeris groaned in a mix of sarcasm and pain, looking down at the Masamune that had dug into her side. Sephiroth's movemen had swung the massive weapon her way.   
  
"Who didn't... see that coming..." Aeris whispered and slumped to the ground.   
  
Her head rolled to the side, wide green eyes staring at nothing as the life in them faltered once again.   
  
Silence ruled for a moment.   
  
Cloud reached for his sword.   
  
"Sephiroth!" he roared, brandishing the impossibly enourmous blade, "you bastard!"   
  
Something went "clonk!" as the plot compression lost its grip of the FFVII group. A manically relieved grin flashed over Sephiroth's face as he drew the Masamune.   
  
"Come and get me if you can, Strife!" he shouted, dashing past Cloud and Tifa and out through the door.   
  
The two heroes dashed after him and sounds of clashing swords and curses came more and more distantly from the corridor, mingled with random shouts of "FREEDOM!".   
  
The FFVIII group exchanged glances.   
  
Seifer cleared his throat, stood up and brushed off his jacket.   
  
"Well, shall we save Squall then?" he suggested.   
  
"Does that involve putting an end to all this?" Zell hopefully asked.   
  
The ex-knight shrugged.   
  
"I don't know..."   
  
He turned towards the exit, his eyes turning hard as steel.   
  
"But I bloody well hope so."


	11. Are we there yet?

Disclaimer: Don't own them, don't own the guest characters. They all belong to their creators, and no money was made from writing this silly fanfic. This is a work of parody and not meant to show disrespect or to insult anybody.

Chapter 11, Not So Grand Finale

The big group of heroes stepped out of the corridor, pausing only to discuss whether to flip a coin about the direction, or just randomly pick left or right. Eventually though, as the sounds of the FFVII battle still could be heard from their left, they took the right path. Which happened to be the right one. Haw haw. I kill myself. Really. Not.

Anyway...

They sneaked down the corridor, setting p-g-bCCAfOS on fire wherever they went.

This, however, gave them some headache.

"Now what the hell is a p-g-bCCAfOS?" Quistis groaned, too tired and irritated by now to care about proper characterization.

The group of SeeDs and wannabe SeeDs paused to regard the burning pile of under-described gray matter on the floor. It didn't move even as it slowly turned to indefined ashes. After some pondering, a lightbulb appeared above Raijin's head. Rinoa quickly zapped it with a well-aimed thunder bolt. Luckily for him, Raijin's name suddenly allowed him to absorb thundermagic for no apparent reason.

"I know, ya know!" he exclaimed, unfazed by the now crisp state of his clothing, "it's short for 'purple-green-blue carnivore cannibalistic aliens from outter space'!"

He got only blank stares for that conclusion, and shrugged.

"I bet the author finally got tired of wri- ow!"

Irvine cut off Seifer's sidekick with ye olde smiting over the head, using the back of his hand. Thus Raijin wasn't rendered unconscious at least, but landed smack on the floor.

"Ow, ya know..."

"Enough with the 'we know we're in a story' gag already!" Irvine snarled and stalked off further into the corridor, "it's not getting funnier! Hyne, if you keep this up you'll make this author a Sue!"

And because he said that, he had to treat himself with ye olde smiting over the head, using the back of his hand. He looked really stupid landing smack on the floor after that.

Collecting themselves, the ragtag team of heroes continued on.

Several hours later, they were becoming more and more certain that they had died somewhere along the way, and were now in Hell. It was the only explanation to all the horrors that faced them.

After a couple more hours, the heroes had however gone so numb that they could no longer feel the pain. This did not stop them from letting others feel it. And so the tunnels echoed with odd and frightening sounds indeed.

"Hail, brave warriors! I have traveled from a faraway past to help-"

Whack.

"I've finally found you, Quisty-siste-"

Snap.

"Hiii! I'm not a Sue! Re-"

Slash.

"I'm a bloodsucking mutant samurai sexgod! Tremble in awe at my fanboy Japa-"

SMASH, CRUNCH, GRIIIIND, RIP, dripp, dripp, dripp...

"Maaan, is there, like, no end to this?" Irvine groaned, trying to reload his Exeter though the shaking of his hands made it almost impossible.

The fatigue was getting the better of him. Apparently their nemesis had spoken true about the plot compression weakening them. Even Selphie was starting to look a little bit tired.

But finally, after wading through an ocean of blood, gore and chopped up p-g-bCCAfOS - their blood was PINK! With white spots! - the troop of heroes crawled towards what looked to be the end of the latest tunnel.

And indeed it came to pass. A great cavern opened up before them, only dimly lit by distant torches, and a spotlight shining down from the middle of the ceiling. The ray of light shed its power of revelation upon Squall, whom appeared to be chained to a table.

No, not cuffed by hands and feet in a highly suggestive position on his back, on top of the table, but instead sitting beside it on a chair, with a long chain going from his right wrist to one of the wooden legs of the bigger furniture. He also wore all his clothes, I might add.

He regarded the exhausted warriors over the brim of his cup of coffee as they dragged themselves over the floor towards him. A pink coffee pot of impressive size stood within his reach on the table top, and by the chair on the opposite side of him stood a matching, abandoned cup.

"What took you so long?" Squall asked.

Seifer reached up, grabbed the edge of the table and managed, with heraculean effort, to pull himself into a kneeling position. Not quite as good as standing, but he lacked the energy to get farther.

"We had a guy equipped with six feet of steel telling us to perform a resurrection for him," the fallen knight said with a weak sneer, "that were some excellent diplomacy skills, I tell you."

"Ah yes, Susan mentioned the Final Fantasy crossover."

Squall reached for the pot and offered it to Seifer in a rare act of human empathy.

"Coffee?"

Seifer fell back onto the floor with the plastic jug in a tight grip, unscrewing the top even as he hit the ground. Not too gracefully he gulped down several mouthfuls of the hot, energizing liquid before passing it on to the person beside him. The jug went several rounds through the group of warriors before it eventually turned out empty, but by then they were starting to feel alive again.

"So," Irvine asked, getting to his feet with support from the table, "where's Sandra, anyway?"

Squall stared at his cup in an attempt to maintain dignity when he replied.

"Little sorcerer's room. Too much coffee."

"Ah... ha."

Zell got up and sat cross-legged as he cracked his neck experimentally.

"Say man," he said, "isn't it time for some revelations, since we're all assembled again?"

"Yes," Quistis said with a wise nod, "and you have spent time with the enemy long enough to learn about him. Do you have any ideas on how we can defeat him?"

Squall leant back and sipped his coffee for a moment, before putting the cup down and crossing his arms.

"As for revelations, we're in some annex of the grottos beneath the underwater research facility and I haven't managed to pry anything useful from Susan. As for plans..."

He held up his chained hand.

"Get this OFF me already!"

The heroes out to save the main hero looked at each other. After a few more moments of non-productivity, Irvine just gave Rinoa a shove forwards. She stumbled and landed both palms on the table.

Feeling everyone's expectant looks she quickly straightened up and grabbed Squall's chain.

"Right, let's..."

"NO SPEECH," Fujin warned.

Rinoa looked around and gave the albino a blank look.

"Pardon?" the raven-haired girl said.

"She means that if you, ya know, starts trying to break the chain with the power of love or somethin', she'll break every bone in your body and make sausages out of your entrails, which she will then serve in the Garden cafeteria, with no extra charge for the mashed potatoes," Raijin helpfully translated.

The silence was a lot heavier this time.

Finally, Rinoa managed to break free from the trancelike state of pure horror, and tried to return to her work. Of course, she only had time to begin summon her powers before another voice rung out.

"Hold it right there, you puny little escapees!"

Sandra slid into existence far above the group, and started its descent. Everyone suddenly found every other possible direction a lot more interesting to look at. Squall however, studied his own palm from a very close proximity, while muttering under his breath about easily distracted morons who couldn't even take a simple order without spending ten minutes staring into space and arguing. He could only be happy that the arguing wasn't musings about love.

Hey, all in all... he should be grateful.

But then again, the story is almost over, and we need to squeeze in a little more angst wherever we can, now don't we?

Susan paused his decent, and looked upwards.

"Whaddaya mean it's almost over? Won't I even get to torture them anymore?" he complained to the darkness above.

You've tortured them quite enough already, if you ask me.

"Cheapskate!"

"What, we're breaking the fourth wall again, man?" Zell shouted.

I'm not a man. And not exactly... see, I had written "author makes a needless appearance in the story" in my notes, and I absolutely refuse to do that "properly". I think this'll be enough of that. Now proceed as if nothing happened. Toddle along. Shoo.

Susan cleared his throat and continued his descent. As he finally touched ground, the heroes also forced themselves to look at him since the drama required it.

"Foolish mortals!" the transsexual - or whatever - sorcerer shouted while waving his arms around dramatically for emphasis - forcing Squall and Rinoa to duck, "you dare to break free-"

"Actually, we were broken out by wildly out of character fellow characters," Quistis informed.

Sandra paused for a moment at this, but then picked up where he had been.

"- and break into the heart of my very lair! You shall now learn to know- the hell?"

While his sentence might have sounded somewhat complete despite the sudden question mark, his tone suddenly changed for the last two words. From being loud and high pitched enough to break glass, it became normal and questioning.

Naturally there had to be a reason for that. This would be a distant, uncanny hiss followed by the eerie screech of a p-g-bCCAfOS.

The darkness became silent as the grave.

Silent. Silent.

Something was out there. Something that would not leave anybody to hear you scream.

Remember, friends, that space is vast and mysterious.

"We're not in space! We're beneath the bottom of the ocean!" Squall snarled while taking cover behind Quistis' back.

This joke wasn't funny the first time we did it, commander. I'll feed you to the monster hiding in the dark if you don't stop acting like you can hear me.

The heroes and sorcerer huddled closer together.

For some reason it seemed like everyone concluded that behind the strong, independent and most bookish gal was the safest place to be. Even Susan.

Quistis did not seem to pleased with this.

"Is-is there something out there?" Selphie whispered, nervously reaching for her Strange Vision.

How she got her weapons back was just another plot hole that you shouldn't even bother trying to figure out. I assure you that most of the characters have given up at least three chapters ago.

Luckily, nobody thought to answer her question with "Yes, the TRUTH!", because that would have led to serious bloodshed.

"I think we can conclude that, yes," Squall scowled.

He gave Sandra a stern look.

"Is this a good time for the enemy-switching-sides plot?" the commander asked.

Susan opened his mouth, but another hiss cut off his immediate response. It sounded a lot more close by this time. The sorcerer gave a nervous laugh.

"Uhm, yes," he said and shifted his gaze to the person struggling to be in the middle of the group, "Rinoa dear, give me a hand here."

"R-right," the young sorceress stammered.

The two natural magic users quickly raised there hands, and their eyes glowed faintly.

Bonk!

Something black, smooth and drooling smacked into the pink wall bubble forming around the heroes. It bounced back into obscurity, hissing and spitting acid all the way.

It moved too quickly for any of the characters to get a proper look at it, but they could faintly make out an inhuman outline scouring around just by the border of the blackness. All this gave them were a blurry mental image of something with a big head, skeletal body, huge claws, hungry teeth - and for them, a lot of cold sweat.

The creature, whatever it was, seemed created for this purpose only, to instill fear in anybody happening to lay eyes on it.

No... it was not meant to be seen. It was meant to be heard, felt, smelled... only your sixth sense could possibly protect you from this horror, a horror you could never comprehend.

Susan looked through his notes.

"Uhm," he finally said.

The others expectantly looked at him.

"Uhm."

"What?" Seifer growled.

He did not feel like smirking anymore. Well, he had not felt like it for a long time, but finally the situation completely took away all reason for him to do so, and therefore he could finally relax his sore face muscles.

Sandra licked his lips.

"Crossover," he said in a tiny voice.

Fujin lost her nerve. Finally. See, all these finallyses should really clue you in on how near the end we are.

"We already DID those!" the one-eyed chick snarled, waving at the void surrounding them, "what the hell is that?"

Sighing, Sandra held up the list and pointed at it. It was a long paper, covered with neatly written text in small sentences. Most of them had been crossed out, and Sandra pointed to two of them in a quick succession.

"No, we already did the game crossover with Magus' appearance, and the Final Fantasy one. Both of them from SquareEnix, I would add," he said, "now what we have here is..."

His manicured finger went down to a sentence not yet adorned with a pink line stretched across it.

"... the 'completely illogical crossover', my sweets."

Pause.

"Great! Just great!" Quistis shouted.

She too was at the end of her patience, apparently.

"So what IS that thing?" she continued, waving her arms at the possible position of their adversary.

Sandra rolled up the list and put it away into some kind of magic pocket in thin air. It was obvious from his movements that he was trying to win a little time. While all this happened, the mysterious thing kept moving around and hissing just to make sure that nobody dared to forget about it.

"Weeell," he eventually said and looked upwards, "remember that when it first showed up, there was something in the narrative about space and stuff?"

"_Yes_?" the youngsters snapped, like a practiced choir.

Another nervous laughter.

"Well, you know..." Susan said and turned to look at the darkness, "they say that 'In space, no one can hear you scream'."

It only took a moment for the SeeD's and SeeD wannabes to come to a logical conclusion and make a proper comment.

It was, however, not fit for print.

"Whatever the case," Squall finally snarled and glared at Susan, "you explicably told me that we were done with crossovers!"

"YEAH!" Fujin agreed.

This despite that she had not been there. But again, stuff like that were becoming very minor details.

Sandra snorted and plonked down on the floor, folding his arms across his chest.

"Well, what do you expect? I had to play my parts too, you know. That was 'dirty deceiving of cornered hero'."

"Bah!"

One by one the others sat down, huddling together in smaller groups based on pairings. Zell looked very miserable, even if he was energetically scooting away from Sandra. Fujin and Raijin watched each other suspiciously.

A sour silence ruled for a short while.

"So like... how are we going to get out of here?" Irvine asked.

Rinoa fidgeted with the rings hanging in the chain around her neck, crawling deeper into Squall's tired embrace. The sorceress and Sandra exchanged glances.

"Our powers won't be able to keep the shield up forever," Rinoa said.

At that, Susan perked up.

"Which to the plot means that something will save us just when the magic is about to give in!" he said.

Pause.

"... probably," he added.

"_Probably_? "

"Considering what that thing is, the probability of only one of us making it out of here alive is great, I fear."

Sandra's fingertips rapped against each other and he smiled nervously. In the darkness, the creature kept hissing.

"So... want to make bets?" the sorcerer said.

"Maaan..." Raijin sighed and flopped onto his back, "I hate dying, ya know!"

Sympathetic glances were offered to the Token Strong Black Man aka Zombie/Monster/Vampire/Rabid Pigeon Fodder.

"No way!" Selphie suddenly shrieked.

She smacked her small hands into the ground and stared at Sandra with big, watery eyes.

"Plot hole us out of here, you big meanie!" she said.

For a few moments the sorcerer just blinked like an owl at the girl, but as the puppy-eyes steadily increased their ferocity the bishie finally cleared his throat.

"Let me check my notes..."

He pulled out the List from hyper-space and skimmed through it. The fine eyebrows knitted, jumped, twitched, looped and danced with each other for the silent minutes that passed.

"A-HA!"

A finger bore down on the paper, and the pink nail cut through it. Sandra didn't care. The teenagers leant forwards without thinking, careful hope springing into their eyes.

"The crossover... yesss..."

Sandra put the list away and gave his prisoners/allies a bright smile.

"Everyone, put your weapons away and look helpless."

This was met with blank stares.

"... what?" Squall finally asked.

A new sound came from the darkness. A clatter of a heavy boot hitting hard floor. The hissing increased, but at the same time started moving further away.

"NOW!" Sandra shrieked.

There was no fighting that shrill sound. Quickly the warriors pocketed their weapons and curled up on the floor, trying to recall how it felt to be frightened children. Susan remained where he was, glaring into the blackness through the pink-tinted wall.

A stray ray of light flashed across the edges of a metallic armor and the footsteps ceased. Sandra looked up and smiled at the towering giant.

Metal covered the huge creature, even the face hidden behind a cold, emotionless mask. Hair set in thick dreadlocks- no, not hair. Tentacles spilled out from below the helmet. The armor still lacked any little dents and blemishes from earlier fights, but this did not lower the frightening rate of the appearance.

Susan gave a dainty little wave with his hand, while the teenagers remained where they were. Despite the lack of proper eye contact and the hidden face, the creature turned away with an air of disgust. The nasty spear hefted onto its back was visible just for a moment before the darkness swallowed it and the heavy steps toned away into obscurity. A spear. As if the claws had not been enough. Ah well. It WAS going up against something equally terrifying.

"Happy hunting..." Susan whispered.

Only moments later he smirked at the sound of violent hissing and metal against natural panzer. From the sounds of it, it would be a fierce battle indeed.

In a fluid motion Sandra got to his feet and waved at his fellows.

"I think we should head out, like, NOW," the sorcerer declared with great urgency.

Just to be on the safe side Sandra hurriedly cast Haste on the whole troop. In the magical glow they all dared to look a little hopeful.

"Ready?" Susan asked, glancing at the darkness.

"Who died and made you leader you bloody wet-dream self-ins-" Seifer started, but didn't get farther.

Quistis grabbing him from behind and muffling him with her hand served as an excellent "shut the hell up" message.

"I don't care if he's your and Squall's long-lost-clone-sister-brother!" the instructor hissed. Just to make things clear, y'know. "I want OUT OF HERE!"

Seifer gave a tiny little nod. It was all he was allowed.

But Susan looked a little disturbed by what he had heard, and turned to Squall.

"If you would, commander?" the sorcerer kindly offered.

Squall shrugged and looked around.

"On the count of 'whatever'," he declared. "One..."

Quistis let go of Seifer.

"... two..."

They all got down on their fingertips and toes, drawing one knee up to their chests.

"... three..."

Butts UP and...

"WHATEVER!" they all chorused in perfect harmony.

The shield shattered in a thousand pink shards and the heroes and the bishie took off like streaks of color. They dashed through the tunnels and corridors of the secret lab, breaking into Omega Weapon's cavern. Selphie, using her amazing bubbly water-boiling skills led the way, dashing across the expanse of water and leaving a streak of dry undersea lake bottom behind.

Nobody seemed to recall all the, y'know, nasty ruby dragons and stuff that normally inhabited the cavern.

The stairs through the abandoned research lab was passed at a minimum of three steps at the time.

And behind them, the Predator(tm) kept the Alien(tm) busy.

Despite the mad flight, it seemed like hours passed from their starting point until they broke into the sun.

Gasping, stumbling and praising all the powers they could think of, the ragged group tumbled into the fresh air and the shadow of the conveniently waiting Ragnarok.

"Are we... done?" Zell finally gasped, leaning heavily against the cliff.

"Yup!"

They all looked up at the cheerful voice, glaring daggers. Susan laid in a disturbingly sexy pose on one of the rocks, seemingly at ease - save the sweat that was wreaking havoc on his makeup. From the look on his face, he was trying to ignore the problem out of existence.

He held up the list of clichés towards the sky, and it caught fire. Within a few seconds the last ashes fluttered from the sorcerer's fingers, brought out into the ocean by the salty winds.

"I must congratulate you for breaking through my spell!" Susan sighed.

He smiled and stretched.

"Oh well, now that I'm reformed and all, I need a new career."

Sitting up, he took on a thoughtful expression for a moment. Sudden fear clutched the heroes' hearts and they tried to back away, but exhaustion bound them to the spot like chains made from the heaviest metal.

Finally Sandra clapped his hands.

"Oh, I know! I'll be a teacher at Garden! Won't that be ma-rve-lous?"

He beamed at the canon characters. They exchanged glances, then looked at Squall. He slumped.

"No more conspiracies?" he said.

"I can't make promises, darling."

Sandra even looked honestly concerned this time.

"I'm afraid I can only work within this fic, unless my contract is given to another author," he said.

Yeah, right.

Squall groaned and turned his face skywards, staring helplessly at the heavens. The blue sky spread out endlessly, promising new dawns and thousands of adventures ahead.

And with that thought in mind, he did the only thing he could think of doing.

"... whatever."

The End.

'

_Author's note: _Wow, this was placed in the backburner for forever. But it's finally over. Hooray!


End file.
